The Q Effect
by JayColin
Summary: SLASH Male Shepard/Kaidan, Male Shepard/OC - Two vastly different universes collide when Q decides to send a pair of Federation vessels, along with a Klingon ship and a Romulan ship, into another reality, on a mission that could very well determine the fate of both universes. Features twin brother Shepards.
1. Chapter 1

The Q Effect  
Written by J.C. Vascardi

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Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relate to Star Trek are the property of CBS Studios, Inc. and/or Paramount Pictures, while all featured characters and places that that related to the game Star Trek Online are the property of Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and finally all featured characters and places that relate to Mass Effect are the property of Bioware/EA. I'm not profiting on this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the shows, games, books, or other media.

Main Pairings: Rhys Shepard/Kaidan Alenko, Finn Shepard/Toran Ren

Secondary Pairings: Kyle Hawke-Derikson/Nathan Derikson, Logan Parker/Syrran Parker, Lucas Parker/Serron Parker, William Bristol-Drake/Bryan Drake, and the possibility of others in the future.

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Slash, Language, Violence, M/M Sex, Threesome, Foursome, Original Characters (others may get added as the story progresses)

Crossover: Mass Effect/Star Trek Online

Summary: Two vastly different universes collide when Q decides to send a pair of Federation vessels, along with a Klingon ship and a Romulan ship, into another reality, on a mission that could very well determine the fate of both universes.

-o-0-o-

Chapter One

-o-0-o-

Captain Toran Ren, the thirty-two-year-old Commanding Officer of the _Odyssey_ -class USS Anteros, sighed as he entered his quarters. It had been a long day and he was exhausted. A small part of him just wanted to lay down in bed immediately, without even pausing to take off his uniform. However, leaning against the wall next to the door to his quarters, he spied the door to his bathroom and smiled weakly as the thought of a soak in a hot tub came to mind. Making up his mind, Toran pushed away from the wall and headed into the bathroom where he pressed a button on the console next to the tub which began filling with the captain's preferred water temperature.

Outside of the senior officer quarters, most people only had sonic showers, which made Toran extremely thankful to be the captain and thus a senior officer, because he wasn't sure that he would have been able to get through the last five years of his career if it hadn't been for the ability to relax in a hot tub at least a couple of times a week. When he'd graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2400 he'd known that relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire had been deteriorating for quite some time, but he'd always hoped right up until the last possible second that war would be avoided. Of course, in the end it wasn't and in 2405 a war broke out between the two powers that had only very recently ended with an armistice, in early 2410, following devastating attacks on the Sol System and Qo'noS by the Undine, otherwise known as Species 8472.

Taking off his uniform, Toran made his way over to the sink and splashed some cold water on his face before looking at himself in the mirror. Between his blond hair, green eyes, and muscular body, he'd been told by many people that he was attractive, although other than a few brief flings in his Academy days, Toran had thus far remained a bachelor.

Of course, part of the reason for that was because of the 2400 death of Dr. Jadzia Ren, which had led to recent Starfleet Academy graduate Toran Belar becoming Toran Ren, as he became the eighth host of the Ren symbiont. Jadzia had been married herself until the death of her husband in 2397 and had still been grieving for him at the time of her own death. As the new host of the Ren symbiont, Toran had all of Jadzia's memories and it was those memories that had played a part in Toran remaining single, although the war had certainly not helped matters, either.

A beep from the computer told him that the tub was full, which prompted Toran to toe off his socks and push down his underwear. Before getting into the tub, he walked over to the replicator and said, "Tea, English Breakfast, Hot."

Having lived on Earth for four years while attending Starfleet Academy, Toran had developed a taste for quite a few human beverages and foods, and that taste was only strengthened when he joined with Ren, as Jadzia had lived on Earth for nearly forty years and had been married to a human man. Setting his tea on the edge of the tub, Toran climbed in and moved into a comfortable position before taking his cup and taking a sip, sighing in contentment as the hot liquid soothed his insides and the hot bathwater soothed his body.

"Computer, music, Ren relaxation mix one," Toran said, moments before an instrumental piano/violin concerto began playing. Leaning back against the back of the tub, Toran took a few more sips of his tea, before setting it aside. Grabbing a small towel from the nearby rack, Toran rolled it up and placed it on the edge of the tub, before he rested his head on it and allowed his eyes to drift shut.

Unfortunately for Toran his relaxation time was cut shut a moment later, as a voice that was way too close for comfort said, "I always did find Trill spots to be so sexy."

Jumping at the voice, Toran groaned as he saw that he was no longer alone in his bathtub. "Oh for the love of all that's holy what do you want, Q? And why are you in my bathtub?"

"Because you were, so I figured I'd join you," Q replied. After a moment, he said, "You know, my father told me once that he did this to Aunt Kathy once while she was still in the Delta Quadrant, but he was fully clothed when he joined her in the tub."

' _I so didn't need it pointed out that he's naked,'_ Toran thought to himself as he fought the urge to look at Q's naked body. Sadly, he failed in the attempt and blushed when he felt himself hardening at what he saw. He suddenly really wished that he'd thought to add bubbles to his bath, as that would at least have obscured his view of Q. He held no illusions, however, that bubbles would have obscured Q's view of him, since he was sure that the omnipotent pest could see through people's clothes if he wanted to.

"Oh, I seem to have caused a reaction," Q said with a grin as he snapped his fingers and disappeared for only a second, before reappearing right next to Toran. Previously he had been on the opposite end of the tub facing Toran, but now, he was right next to him their bodies touching as Q reached over and ran his fingers along the spots on the side of Toran's face.

"Stop that, Q," Toran said, as he tried to move away from the omnipotent man's hand, but had little success considering that there really wasn't much space for him to be moving around in the tub. Honestly, he was a little surprised that there was even enough room for Q to lay in the tub next to him, although then again he was omnipotent and may have extended the size of the tub to allow it.

Ignoring Toran, Q instead continued tracing his fingers over the spots, moving ever lower, as his fingers ghosted over Toran's cheek, down to his neck, and then down his chest. When his hand reached the water with no signs of stopping, however, Toran grabbed his arm and said, "I swear if you go any lower, omnipotent or not, you will lose that hand."

"Oh you're no fun," Q said as he removed his hand. "It's really no wonder you haven't been laid in over three years."

"My sex life is none of your concern, Q," Toran said as he fixed the omnipotent man with a hard look and asked, "Now are you going to tell me why you're here or not?"

"What sex life?" Q countered before he sighed and said, "Oh fine. I dropped by because I know you and your crew are going on shore leave and instead of boring old Risa, I thought that you and your crew might enjoy a real adventure… in an alternate universe."

"What?" Toran asked, momentarily confused, but then seeing that Q was ready to snap his fingers, Toran shouted, "No, Q, don't!"

Obviously Q didn't listen, however, and soon disappeared in a flash of light. Looking around the room, everything seemed the same to Toran, as he was still in his bathtub in his quarters, although after a moment, he looked at the window and saw that the ship had dropped out of warp.

"Damn it," Toran muttered, as he pulled himself up, got out of the tub and began drying off. Normally, Toran might have placed his abandoned socks and underwear in the garment reprocessor but as he wouldn't put it past Q to have someone waiting for him in his quarters, after he was dry, Toran pulled his underwear and socks back on and spying the robe hanging on the hook next to the doors into his quarters, he pulled that on as well. Before leaving the room, however, Toran disposed of what remained of his tea and said, "Raktajino, hot, extra strong."

As a cup of Klingon coffee materialized on the replicator pad, the comm system beeped, before a female voice said, _**"Bridge to Captain Ren."**_

Recognizing the voice as that of Lieutenant Maria Thorne, who was the commander of the night watch, Toran said, "Ren here."

" _ **Captain, we seem to have dropped out of warp and the computer is having difficulty triangulating our location."**_

"I'm aware of the issue, Lieutenant," Toran said, as he decided not to say anything about Q until he'd talked to the senior staff. The last thing he wanted right now was to cause a panic among the junior officers and the rest of the crew. He trusted that everyone on his ship was professional enough to carry out their duties, but being trapped in a potentially hostile alternate universe with no backup and no ability to get home? He didn't need Jadzia's psychology classes to know that that could cause a panic even in the most professional crew in the galaxy. "Contact the senior staff and have them meet me in the Conference Room in ten minutes. Ren out."

Taking another sip of his raktajino, Toran exited the bathroom and found, thankfully, that his quarters were empty. Still, he was glad that he'd left a robe in the bathroom, as he would have been quite embarrassed if there had been someone waiting for him in his quarters and if there was one thing that Toran knew beyond any shadow of a doubt it was that it was never wise to underestimate Q or his ability to be annoying.

Walking over to his wardrobe, Toran debated whether or not to put on his uniform since he was technically off duty. Knowing a few members of his senior staff, however, he imagined they probably would wear their uniforms and thus with a sigh, Toran put his on and drained his cup of raktajino before leaving his quarters and heading to the nearest turbolift.

-o-0-o-

Since it hadn't taken him long to get dressed, Toran was the first person into the Conference Room, so walking over to the replicator, he asked it to replicate several cups of raktajino for his senior staff, in case someone needed the pick-me-up that it provided. The first to arrive was the human first officer, Commander Melissa Flores, who he'd gone to Starfleet Academy with. As the redhead took a seat at the conference table, gladly taking a cup of raktajino as she passed the tray, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Logan Parker entered the room along with his husband, the Vulcan Chief Science Officer, Lieutenant Commander Syrran Parker.

Not long after they'd both taken cups of raktajino and their seats, Lt. Felicity Savali, the Chief Tactical Officer and Security Chief walked in along with the other married couple among the senior staff, which consisted of Chief Medical Officer Commander Nathan Derikson and Second Officer and Chief of Operations Lieutenant Commander Kyle Hawke-Derikson.

As they took their seats, Toran said, "Well, as soon as Kira and Cassandra get here, we can begin." Not long after he said this, the aforementioned people entered the room and took their seats.

Taking his seat at the head of the table, Toran said, "I apologize for waking all of you at this ungodly hour, but we have a situation."

"What kind of situation, sir?" asked Lieutenant Kira Nevin, the twenty-two-year-old male Bajoran Flight Controller of the Anteros, who was also a distant cousin of Kai Kira Nerys.

"I had a visit from Q," Toran answered, deciding to leave out the part that this visit occurred in his bathtub as he really didn't think the rest of his crew needed to know that.

Several people at the table groaned at that, before Commander Cassandra Elbrey, the Betazoid Counselor and at seventy-two the oldest person currently serving on the Anteros, stated, "I'm afraid to even ask what he wanted."

"He thought we needed an adventure," Toran revealed. "So he's sent us to an alternate universe."

"And did he provide any other information?" Kyle asked.

Looking over at his android second officer, Toran sighed and said, "Of course he didn't, Kyle, this is Q we're talking about after all. When have you ever known him to be forthcoming?"

"True," Kyle said, as Nathan asked, "So, what's the plan, Captain?"

"Well, first thing's first, we need to figure out where the hell we are," Toran said. "Wherever it is that Q has put us, we dropped out of warp immediately upon arrival and apparently the computer is having difficulty triangulating our location."

"In that case maybe we should move this meeting to astrometrics," Melissa suggested. "The systems there might be more useful than the ones here in helping to determine where we are."

Toran nodded. "A good suggestion. Let's go."

Everyone stood and left the room, with Toran bringing up the rear. As he passed through the bridge, he stopped for a moment near Lt. Thorne and said, "Lieutenant, the senior staff and I are going down to astrometrics to see if we can figure out where we are. In the meantime, hold this position and scan the area. Contact me if you find anything interesting or if the locals show up."

Lt. Thorne nodded and said, "Yes, sir. Hopefully whoever the locals are will be friendly."

Toran smiled and said, "Yes, let's hope." In his head, he added, _'Though not knowing where exactly here is, I can't guarantee that as much as I wish I could.'_

-o-0-o-

Half-an-hour later the senior staff was in astrometrics and all of them were beginning to get annoyed with their inability to figure out where they were. Long-range scans and astrometric mapping of the area was giving them plenty of information, but when comparing that information to the Federation star charts, they weren't getting any matches for any known area of space.

"Could we be in the Delta or Gamma Quadrants?" Logan asked. "Even being there for seven years, Voyager certainly didn't chart the entire quadrant and with the Dominion controlling large portions of the Gamma Quadrant we've never charted much of that area either."

"Anything is possible," Syrran said. "Although Q did say that he was sending us to an alternate universe, so it's logical to assume that we're not just in a different quadrant of our known universe."

"True," Kyle said as he read through the sensor readings at a much faster rate than anyone else in the room. It had been a surprise to many people, Toran included, when they first met Kyle to find out that he was an android, because he was so human-like that it was nearly impossible to tell that he wasn't human.

Of course, that was how his creator, the late Federation roboticist Dr. Maximillian Hawke, had designed him. Kyle was equipped with a state-of-the-art personality and emotional matrix which perfectly replicated human emotion and Dr. Hawke had also created an entirely new type of synthetic skin that only the most intensive scans could tell wasn't the real thing. The other issue though was that Kyle was married to a human man and that more than anything confused many as to why a human would marry an android. Although very few people who spent the time to actually get to know Kyle and Nathan questioned their relationship, as they were clearly very much in love.

"Captain, long-range scans have found a planet about twelve light years from our present location," Syrran said. "It appears to be registering as Class M, but at this distance I can't get a definite fix on the planet's specifics."

Toran nodded and was just about to tell Syrran to forward the coordinates to the conn so that they could move closer to investigate when Lt. Thorne's voice came over the comm, _**"Bridge to Captain Ren."**_

"Yes, Lieutenant, what is it?"

" _ **Two contacts just decloaked,"**_ Lt. Thorne revealed. _**"One Romulan Republic warbird and a Klingon battle cruiser. They're both hailing us, sir."**_

"Split screen, put it through to astrometrics," Toran said.

" _ **Aye, aye, sir,"**_ Lt. Thorne said, as the viewscreen changed from a star map to a split screen of the bridges of the Romulan and Klingon ships and their commanding officers, both of whom Toran recognized, one more so than the other, considering that he'd known him his entire life.

The Romulan captain, Commander Valdren Lareth, was an attractive young man with very short black hair, as he'd shaved his head, although there was still visible hair there, with the sides of his head being cut much shorter than the top. He also had some visible Borg implants around his left eye, as he was a liberated Borg drone. While the Romulan Republic was officially allied with both the Federation and the Klingon Empire, their government had left it up to each individual captain which side they would favor and Valdren had gone with the Klingons. Thus during the war, Toran and Valdren hadn't had much to do with one another, although they were both present at the battle for Qo'noS against the Undine which had led to the armistice that ended the war.

The Klingon captain, on the other hand, was the one that Toran had known for his entire life, as they'd shared a womb. Captain Joran Dex was Toran's identical twin brother, although while the then Toran Belar had chosen to attend Starfleet Academy, Joran Belar had opted to instead attend the Klingon Academy. During the war, Toran and Joran had done their best to avoid each other and thankfully had never been placed in a situation where they were forced into a position where they'd have to kill one another. Both were loyal to their respective factions, but they obviously still had a certain degree of loyalty to each other as family.

"Valdren, Joran, good to see you both," Toran said.

"Hello brother," Joran said. "I take it you also had a visit from Q?"

"Indeed I did," Toran answered, doing his best not to think about the circumstances of the meeting too much, not only out of fear that he might blush but that Cassandra, being a full Betazoid and thus fully telepathic would be able to pick up on it.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" Valdren asked.

Shaking his head, Toran said, "Unfortunately, no, although we've been here for about an hour now. We've been conducting long-range scans and doing our best to map wherever it is that we are, but the computer thus far hasn't found any matches to known space. Just before you arrived, however, we did detect a Class M planet about twelve light years from here and I was just about to order my crew to investigate when you hailed."

"Well, forward the coordinates and we'll join you in your investigation," Valdren said, as Joran nodded his agreement.

"Of course," Toran said, as he motioned for Kyle to send the coordinates.

"Coordinates received," Joran said. "Farewell for now, brother. _Qapla'!_ "

"Received," Valdren said. "See you there, Captain. _Jolan Tru._ "

Both transmissions cut after the speakers had said their goodbyes, with the astrometrics viewscreen switching to a view of space. Moments later, both ships cloaked, as Toran had Kyle forward the coordinates to the bridge and said, "Ren to Bridge, set course for the coordinates sent by Lt. Cmdr. Hawke. Warp 6 and engage when ready." Even though his name was Kyle Hawke-Derikson, it was still often shortened to Hawke in conversation or when specifying orders.

"So, things just got more interesting," Logan said. "Now we've got Romulans and Klingons with us."

"And the Klingon captain is our captain's twin brother," Kira Nevin added.

"Well, better Captain Dex then one of the more bloodthirsty captains," Melissa said. "I know better than to question the honor of any Klingon to their face, although I've sometimes found some of them to be less than what I'd consider honorable based on their actions. I've never had that problem with Captain Dex, however, even when we were on opposing sides of the war."

"Indeed," Toran agreed. "I can't say that I was surprised that Joran went to the Klingon Academy instead of Starfleet, but I am happy to say that he's still the brother I knew growing up. Obviously, there have been some changes since we were both joined, but nothing too drastic." Pausing for a moment, he said, "For now, I suggest that we all try to get some rest while we wait to arrive at this planet. Although I know that'll be hard with the raktajino coursing through most of our veins, but still try your best as I have a feeling that this is only the beginning."

-o-0-o-

Meanwhile, back in the universe that the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Republic were familiar with, onboard another Federation starship—the _Intrepid_ -class USS Ganymede— the vessel's commanding officer, Captain William Bristol-Drake, was lying flat on his back in his bed. Sleeping, however, was the last thing on Will's mind, as even though he was tired from the day, there was no way he could fall asleep at the moment, considering his current activities.

"Oh, God, yes, Bryan," Will moaned, as his husband of the last six months, Commander Bryan Drake, thrust his hips forward, propelling his hardened member deep into Will's ass.

There were probably people who would be quite surprised at the fact that Will and Bryan were married, considering that Will was twenty-three and Bryan was only sixteen. But then those people were usually the ones who couldn't see past the numbers on a screen and thought that anyone under the age of eighteen was incapable of making mature, adult decisions. For those who actually knew Bryan, however, it very quickly became clear that he wasn't your average sixteen-year-old.

Bryan's parents died when he was ten, leaving him in the care of his father's younger brother, Captain Franklin Drake, who was rumored to be an operative of the super-secret officially non-existent Section 31. Of course, Franklin was a confirmed bachelor who was not the slightest bit ready for suddenly having a child dependent on him and thus really had no clue what to do as it had never really been one of his life's ambitions to have children in the first place. Of course, it helped that Bryan was already very mature for his age because he tended to socialize with older people than himself simply because he viewed them to be his peers instead of people his own age due to his extremely high IQ which was pretty much off the charts.

Franklin knew his nephew was a certified genius who had finished high school in only six months at the age of seven and then got enrolled at the Vulcan Science Academy, where he spent the next three years, graduating with the highest honors that any human attending the academy had ever achieved. So, after about one rather uncomfortable week of Bryan sleeping on his living room sofa—since he only had a one-bedroom apartment and a bed that was only meant for one person—Franklin decided to pull some strings and lean on all the right people in order to get Bryan enrolled at Starfleet Academy and thus into their dormitories, even though at ten he had been much younger than most of the other applicants.

One would think that a person's age wouldn't be a factor when compared to Bryan's very impressive transcript, but the Academy Commandant had balked at accepting someone so young into the Academy—at least until both Fleet Admiral Jorel Quinn and the Federation President Aennik Okeg personally endorsed Bryan's enrollment. To this day, Bryan had no idea just how that had happened and his uncle was not forthcoming on any details, although he got the distinct impression that Franklin Drake was very pleased with whatever maneuvering on his part had been necessary to make it happen.

It was at Starfleet Academy that Will and Bryan met, as they'd been assigned as roommates. Will still remembered the first time he'd met Bryan and thought he'd have nothing in common with the kid, but that first impression changed pretty quickly and by the time they were finishing their first month at the Academy, they were best friends. The romance happened later, delayed by well over a year by Will who, despite Bryan's obvious well-beyond-his-years maturity, couldn't help but feel disgusted by the feelings he was having for his young friend. Finally, on the eve of their Academy graduation, fourteen-year-old Bryan had enough of twenty-two-year-old Will's stalling and took matters into his own hands by grabbing Will and kissing him soundly on the lips. It wasn't long afterward that they started dating and then got married six months ago.

"Oh yes, Will, you're so tight," Bryan said, as he leaned down between Will's legs and kissed him on the lips.

"Harder. Faster." Will moaned in between kisses, which caused Bryan to grin, as he sped up his thrusts.

Both of them were so wrapped up in their current activities that neither of them noticed the brief flash of white light which signaled that they now had an audience. The spectator took one look at the couple on the bed and decided to not ruin the moment by announcing his presence and instead put his hand down his pants and started jerking himself off. It wasn't something he did very often because after several millennia of life, such base pleasures had a tendency to get boring, but there was just something about watching Will and Bryan together that stirred something deep inside of him that he couldn't ignore.

Thus it wasn't until nearly twenty minutes later, shortly after both Bryan and Will had called out each other's names as they came, that either of them realized they were no longer alone in the room when Bryan's eyes suddenly flew open when he felt what he immediately recognized as come on his back, which made no sense considering that Will had come between their stomachs. Whipping his head around, Bryan blushed deeply, even as he yelled, "Q!"

A blushing, wide-eyed Will quickly scrambled to cover him and Bryan with the bedsheets, even as Q just laughed and said, "Oh don't bother, Will," as he snapped his fingers and made the bedsheets disappear. "I just watched you two going at it for a little over twenty minutes, so I've already seen everything you've got anyway—besides I'd still be able to see through the sheets even if you did cover yourself."

It was a moment before Bryan managed to find his voice and ask, "Did you just come on me?"

Q nodded. "Yes, I did. You should feel quite honored by the way, because very few mortals have ever been granted the honor of having a Q's semen touch them."

Both Bryan and Will groaned at that, before Will asked, "What do you want Q? Or are you just here to embarrass us?"

"Embarrassing you wasn't my reason for coming," Q answered. "Also hadn't planned on jerking off, but when I arrived and you two were going at it, I figured I might as well, because it was rather fun watching a live porno."

Bryan sighed as he moved to pull out of his husband, only to realize that he couldn't, which had him turning accusatory eyes at the omnipotent man currently lounging in a nearby chair. "Q!"

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You know what," Bryan said.

"I do?"

Rolling his eyes, Bryan said, "I'm stuck inside of Will and since that's never happened before, I'm going to say that's your fault."

"You might be right," Q admitted. "But why are you complaining? I thought you enjoyed being inside of him. Or was I wrong?"

"Oh God, this is embarrassing," Will muttered.

"Oh, Will, this is nothing," Q said. "If I really wanted to embarrass you, I'd snap my fingers and make you two appear just as you are on the bridge with Admiral Quinn on the view screen." After a moment, he grinned and said, "Or better yet, I'll just pop us over to his office. Yes, I think I like that idea," as he raised his fingers, clearly ready to snap them.

"NO!" both Will and Bryan shouted, but of course, Q being Q, didn't pay their objection any mind whatsoever.

Briefly consumed in a flash of white light, a moment later Will and Bryan found themselves on the floor in front of Admiral Quinn's desk, in the same position they'd been in while still in their bed moments ago. However, Q had apparently decided to be at least a little kind to them by ending whatever he'd done to make it impossible for Bryan to pull out of Will and had thankfully put clothes on both of them, even if it was their off-duty clothes rather than their uniforms.

From his seat in a nearby chair, Q said, "You two should probably get off the floor before I snap Admiral Quinn here."

Bryan and Will didn't need to be told twice as they got off the floor and looked around the office, surprised to see that the admiral and his aides were not present. "Where is he?"

"Apparently he's on Qo'noS," Q answered. "Meeting with Chancellor J'mpok and Proconsul D'Tan, although I really don't feel like taking us to them, so, I'll just bring them to us."

A moment later, an angry slew of Klingon curses could be heard from J'mpok and D'Tan muttered something in Romulan that Bryan and William couldn't hear. Meeting Q's eyes, Admiral Quinn said, "Q. Why have you brought us here?"

"You insolent _petaQ_!" J'mpok exclaimed. "Return me to Qo'noS immediately!"

Q didn't look the least bit concerned about the angry Klingon in front of him, but then again, he was omnipotent. Waving his hand at J'mpok in a dismissive gesture, he said, "Oh don't get your panties in a twist, Chancellor. I've frozen time outside of this room, so nobody on Qo'noS even knows that you're gone." After a moment, he added, "And I suggest that unless you really want to spend the next ten years as an Oprelian amoeba that you refrain from ever calling me a _petaQ_ again."

"Calm yourself, Chancellor," D'Tan advised. "Now, Q, to repeat Admiral Quinn's very good question: why have you brought us here?"

"First off, I trust you all know Captain Bristol-Drake of the Ganymede and his First Officer?" Q asked, prompting Quinn, J'mpok, and D'Tan to nod as they had all met them before. Quinn much more often, of course, considering that he was the Commander of Earth Spacedock.

"Very well then," Q said. "I will very soon be sending Captain Bristol-Drake, Commander Drake, and the Ganymede itself to an alternate universe to join the USS Anteros, the RRW Incepteris, and the IKS Var'Mang which I've already sent there."

Knowing that he couldn't stop him even if he wanted to, Quinn asked, "May I inquire as to why you've sent three ships to an alternate universe or why you plan on sending a fourth? And is this the Mirror Universe you've sent them to?"

"No it is not the Mirror Universe," Q answered. "If I had to give it a name, well, let's just call it the Mass Effect Universe, which in many ways is very similar to this universe. As the Milky Way Galaxy and all the galaxies that you're familiar also exist there, except there are some major differences. The main one being that while humanity and Earth do exist there, Klingons and Romulans and their respective planets do not. In fact, humanity is the only race that lives there that any of you are familiar with."

"Why have you sent them there though?" J'mpok asked. It was clear that he was expending quite a bit of effort to keep his temper in check.

"To counter a threat that if left unchecked will spill over to this reality," Q said. "And if you think fighting the Iconians seems daunting, just wait until you find a fleet of several hundred thousand two-kilometer long sentient warships attacking you. Sentient warships by the way which have the power to emit a telepathic signal which can indoctrinate any organic lifeform to follow their every command. Fortunately that signal isn't instant, as it takes a number of years to take effect, but these sentient warships are nothing if not persistent and patient. They have, after all, been literally murdering entire galactic populations like clockwork every 50,000 years for several hundred million years now."

Quinn and D'Tan both looked horrified at the prospect, while J'mpok just shook his head and said, "That reality clearly doesn't have any honorable warriors then."

"On the contrary, Chancellor," Q said. "They've had plenty of warrior races over the millennia. Races that make Klingons look like sniveling babies by comparison."

J'mpok obviously didn't like that comparison and he lost control of his temper as he shouted, " _QI'yaH!_ You miserable, inbred _petaQ_!"

Instead of answering, Q snapped his fingers and then picked up the petri dish that now rested on the floor where J'mpok had been standing only a few moments ago. "I did warn you, Chancellor, did I not?"

"Q, turn him back this instant or I will," a new voice said, as Q's father, Q, showed up.

"Oh fine," Q Junior replied, as he set the petri dish back on the floor and snapped his fingers again as J'mpok returned to his normal appearance.

Before anyone could say anything, however, Q, the elder, was right up in J'mpok's personal space, as he said, "Did you enjoy your brief trip to single cell city, Chancellor?" Not waiting for a response, he added, "I suggest you stop calling my son foul things or I'll do things to you that will make you beg me to grant you the mercy of eternity as an Oprelian amoeba. Capisce?"

"Klingons do not beg!" J'mpok exclaimed, although his voice was significantly quieter than it was moments ago when he was swearing at Q Junior.

Turning away from the Klingon Chancellor, Q said, "You may resume your explanation, son."

"Thanks, Dad, although I had everything under control," Q Junior said.

Not waiting for a response he asked, "Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the threat in question doesn't have a specific name, although the Protheans, who are the most recent civilization to be wiped out in the previous cycle of nearly 50,000 years ago, dubbed these sentient ships as Reapers. Of course, part of the reason that they always succeed in their genocidal cycles is because they've left behind technology for the races of the galaxy to find and use. And in using that technology, the races unknowingly activate imbedded indoctrination protocols which strongly discourage them from developing any new technology of their own. Thus the races of the galaxy are time and again progressing down a predetermined technological path that guarantees the Reapers will win because they can ultimately turn the technology that the younger races have come to depend on against them."

"So where do our assets come in?" D'Tan asked.

"It's simple, really. The four ships I send to this other reality will be tasked with thwarting the Reapers wherever possible, while finding out as much as you possibly can about them. Now, obviously I could just tell you everything, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, the crews there will also be tasked with uniting the various races and providing them with technology that will allow them to defeat the Reapers once and for all, as even with your superior firepower, four ships can't possibly hope to stand against the entire Reaper fleet."

"I'm sure you realize that what you're suggesting goes against the Federation's Prime Directive," Quinn pointed out. "We do not interfere in the natural development of other species and providing them with advanced technology definitely counts as interference."

Q Junior sighed. "Oh you mortals and your cute little philosophical ideals. If you wish to bind your hands and prevent yourselves from helping these people, that's your business Admiral, but that's why I'm also sending a delegation from the Klingon Empire in addition to a Klingon-allied captain of the Romulan Republic. They are not bound by your Prime Directive and are free to help the people of that reality as they see fit."

Turning to J'mpok and D'Tan, he added, "And before you ask why you should help them, all I'll say is that the Reapers have been collecting knowledge for millennia. And the Continuum Elders believe that if this cycle is allowed to happen, they'll gain the last piece of information they need, which is useless on its own but when combined with what they've already discovered, will allow them to gain access to this reality. But of course if you'd prefer to be fighting both the Iconians and the Reapers at the same time, well by all means, do so. Just know that your already low chances of survival against the Iconians only get that much worse if the Reapers are added to the mix."

-o-0-o-

Back in the Mass Effect Universe, a few hours later, three ships dropped out of warp near the planet that the Anteros had detected earlier. Of course, only one of them, the Anteros itself, was actually visible, since the Var'Mang and the Incepteris were both equipped with cloaking devices while the Anteros was not. Not long after arriving at the planet, however, both ships decloaked as they did have to do that in order to coordinate with the Anteros via subspace communication. Well, technically, they didn't, but sending subspace communication while remaining cloaked pretty much rendered the cloaking device moot as it would allow for the position of the cloaked ship to be triangulated, so there really was no point in remaining cloaked.

While enroute to the planet, Toran and the senior staff, none of whom had been able to sleep due to the raktajino they'd all drank, relieved the night watch early and had thus taken up their positions on the bridge. Eventually Toran would need to tell the junior officers and the rest of his crew what was going on but he figured that could wait until he actually knew that himself. Establishing a three-way split screen communication with Joran and Valdren, the three captains discussed what to do.

"Joran, perhaps you could concentrate on scanning the surrounding space?" Toran asked. "Warn us if any ships show up that may or may not be hostile?"

Joran nodded. "I can do that," as he turned his head and gave orders in Klingon to one of his officers that was off the viewscreen. Turning back to Toran, he smiled and said, "Done."

"Thank you," Toran said. "Anyway, Valdren, if you could do a mineralogical scan that would be helpful." In a very rare and somewhat unprecedented move, which probably had the rumor mill running at full speed, Toran had ordered the bridge cleared of everyone who wasn't senior staff. What he didn't know at the time, was that both Joran and Valdren had done the same. "Since we don't know where we are or how to get back, assuming we even can without Q taking pity on us, it stands to reason we'll have to resupply at some point and thus knowing where we can find the materials we'll need in order to do that definitely seems wise."

Valdren nodded. "Indeed, I suppose it does." With a slight smirk, he then added, "I'll even be nice and keep an eye out for dilithium for you, even though my ship doesn't actually use it."

"I'd appreciate that, Valdren," Toran said with a nod, as he turned to Syrran and Kyle and said, "Kyle, Syrran start scanning the planet and tell me everything you can about it."

The two officers nodded as they set to work. It wasn't long before Kyle said, "The planet has a radius of 5,261 kilometers and it appears that the planet's year is half a year longer than Earth's and that its days are 37.3 hours long. Atmospheric pressure is 0.91, with a surface temperature of 56 degrees Celsius and a surface gravity of 0.95."

Valdren nodded and said, "My science officer agrees with those facts. It appears the planet is banded by a harsh equatorial desert, but the areas closer to the poles are temperate and the planet is very rich in platinum, among other minerals, including dilithium."

"Captain, there's 4.4 million people living down there," Syrran revealed. "According to the computer, they're human."

"Human?" Toran asked, clearly intrigued.

"Yes, sir," Syrran said. "I'm detecting what appear to be a handful of small cities, mostly closer to the poles, as Captain Lareth suggested. They appear to be mostly mining based, although they also do appear to have the capability of space travel, as I'm detecting what appears to be a spaceport in the largest city."

"Any sign that they're warp-capable?" Toran asked.

Syrran was quiet for a moment as he concentrated on the sensor readings, but said, "I'd need a close scan of one of their ships to be sure, but from the readings I've getting right now, I don't see any indication of them making use of warp drive. Although I am detecting some form of antimatter energy, the power it seems to be generating is less than a tenth of what we produce in a shuttle, let alone what the ship itself is capable of producing."

"My science officer has found a large power source that's not on the planet," Joran announced a few minutes later. "It appears to be emanating from a massive structure in space. Position is in the next star system, which also seems to have a fair amount of ship traffic. The power it's producing, however, doesn't match anything in our databanks."

After pressing a few buttons on his console, Kyle nodded. "I'm seeing the same thing and concur there's no matches to the energy source in the databanks. I can't even identify the elements involved, although whatever it is it's massive. A closer scan might prove useful."

"Joran, can you cloak and investigate?" Toran asked. "Valdren can take over scanning the area for approaching ships."

Both captains nodded, before Joran closed his channel. The Var'Mang cloaked soon afterward and presumably moved away to investigate the anomaly. After a few more minutes, during which Kyle and Syrran collected as many sensor readings about the area as they could, Valdren said, "Toran, I'm detecting a ship. It doesn't appear to have detected us but if we remain in our current position, it will."

While a part of him was tempted to make first contact with the species of this strange alternate universe, Toran decided that it wasn't the time for that yet, as he wanted to gather more information and have time to analyze it before contacting the locals. To that end, he said, "Acknowledged, Valdren. Time to move away then, as I think contacting the populace of the planet or the occupants of that ship would be premature at this point." Turning to Kira, he said, "Helm, take us away from the planet and the ship, half impulse until we're at least 100 kilometers away, then go to warp back to where we were when we arrived."

"Aye, aye, sir," Kira Nevin replied, as he set the proper course and engaged the impulse engines.

"I'll cloak and join Joran in his investigation of the anomaly," Valdren said. "And I'll see if I can get a message to him that you're moving back to our starting position and then we'll meet you there."

Toran nodded and said, " _Jolan Tru_ , Valdren."

Valdren nodded his head before closing the channel and cloaking his ship. Moments later, the Anteros went to warp.

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

And there's Chapter One of 'The Q Effect'. The last thing I should have been doing at the moment was working on a new story, but I've been playing a lot of Star Trek Online recently (and though I haven't played it in a while I greatly enjoyed the Mass Effect trilogy) and that reminded me that I had this story on my hard drive. So, I read over what I had, rewrote large portions of the chapter, and here is the result. I'm posting this to see if there's any interest in my continuing this storyline, but know that if there is, it'll get tacked onto the end of my current update schedule, which means that in the future it'll get updated in 3-5 chapter arcs after I've updated the other 5 stories on the list. I'm currently on the third chapter of what will be a three-chapter arc for the 4th story on the list.

Also if any of you who follow me as an author got the notice for this story, are reading this and thinking, _"Really? Another story? Is he crazy?"_ my justification is that going ahead with this story would allow me to avoid potential burnout by taking a break from the Harry Potter fandom after updating 'The Journey Begins/Along the Journey' (the 5th story on my update schedule) and before moving on to 'A Royal at Hogwarts' (the 1st story on my update schedule). That is why I positioned 'Breaking the Cycle' and 'Brotherly Love' on the update schedule in the positions that I did, as they allow me to take breaks from the Harry Potter universe in between the three stories that I have in it. As that was an issue I was starting to run into while I was concentrating solely on 'The Journey Begins/Along the Journey' for several chapters in a row, thus I hope breaking things up a bit and visiting other universes will keep that from happening. Thus far it's really helped with the stories that have already been updated this cycle.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to contact me in a review, by email, my Yahoo group, or on Twitter JVascardi.


	2. Chapter 2

The Q Effect  
Written by J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relate to Star Trek are the property of CBS Studios, Inc. and/or Paramount Pictures, while all featured characters and places that that related to the game Star Trek Online are the property of Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and finally all featured characters and places that relate to Mass Effect are the property of Bioware/EA. I'm not profiting on this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the shows, games, books, or other media.

Main Pairings: Rhys Shepard/Kaidan Alenko, Finn Shepard/Toran Ren

Secondary Pairings: Kyle Hawke-Derikson/Nathan Derikson, Logan Parker/Syrran Parker, Lucas Parker/Serron Parker, William Bristol-Drake/Bryan Drake, and the possibility of others in the future.

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Slash, Language, Violence, M/M Sex, Threesome, Foursome, Original Characters (others may get added as the story progresses)

Crossover: Mass Effect/Star Trek Online

Summary: Two vastly different universes collide when Q decides to send a pair of Federation vessels, along with a Klingon ship and a Romulan ship, into another reality, on a mission that could very well determine the fate of both universes.

-o-0-o-

Chapter Two

-o-0-o-

A couple of hours later, Toran was in his ready room after he'd made a ship-wide announcement of the situation. Between the ship unexpectedly dropping out of warp, the computer being unable to triangulate where they were, the senior staff meeting and relieving the night watch early, and then Toran clearing the bridge of all but the senior staff, he knew he had to address the situation. So, address it he did and for the most part, everyone took it in stride. There were some people who were clearly on edge about the whole not knowing where they were and if they could get back issue, but then again, they were a Starfleet crew. And above all else, Starfleet was about exploration and this situation definitely gave them the chance to do that.

Lost in thought about the situation, Toran almost didn't hear the door chime signaling that someone was outside waiting to see him. Shaking his head, he called out, "Enter."

As the doors slid open, Cassandra entered the room, and Toran was once again struck by the fact that even though she was in her early seventies, she really didn't look it. Whether it was due to her Betazoid heritage or just down to her taking extremely good care of herself, Toran wasn't entirely sure. Of course, then again Toran knew a thing or two about looking younger than you technically were since he was a Joined Trill. Joining with the Ren symbiont hadn't actually affected his physical age, but he did still have access to many more memories than a person his age should have. "Counselor, what can I do for you?"

"I wanted to report on the general mood of the crew following your announcement."

"I welcome your insights."

"Some are definitely scared," Cassandra revealed. "Although I'd say that the majority are excited. There is some concern over the fact that we have a Klingon ship and a Klingon-allied Romulan ship with us in this reality, although your relation to the Klingon captain has set a few minds at ease."

"Well, I can't say that I blame anyone for being concerned," Toran said. "The armistice that ended the war is only about a week old, so honestly I think I'd be more concerned if nobody else was concerned about the fact that we're now in a two against one situation with our enemy of the last five years."

Cassandra nodded. "Yes, as I said, there are some who are concerned, but also those that are hopeful that your relationship with Captain Dex will help to alleviate any potential issues."

"Well, Joran and I always were close as children. I suppose sharing both a womb and a bedroom will do that. There's definitely a bond that I don't think anything will break at this point, because it already survived a five-year war and the inevitable changes to our personalities that went along with both of us being joined."

"Indeed," Cassandra said, before she smiled and asked, "So, your encounter with Q happened while you were bathing?"

Toran closed his eyes at this and sighed. He was also sure that he was blushing. "You picked up on that, huh?"

"Well, I am Betazoid, my dear, so yes," Cassandra said. Due partially to her position as Ship's Counselor and because of her motherly personality, several people on the ship, Toran included, privately thought of Cassandra as a sort of surrogate mother. Of course, being Betazoid she knew this and thus, from time to time, she not only gave motherly advice, but also called people dear as if she was speaking to her child.

It wasn't perhaps the most professional way to act, especially with your commanding officer, but Toran had never complained or told her to stop because honestly a part of him kind of liked it since he barely remembered his own mother, since she'd died when he and Joran were only three.

"This is so embarrassing," Toran said after a moment, as he opened his eyes but looked over at the fish tank that occupied a section of his wall instead of looking at Cassandra.

"Oh, nonsense. There's no reason to be embarrassed, Toran. Trust me when I say that as a telepath I've seen things that make your encounter with Q seem tame by comparison. To be honest, I've also personally experienced things far more embarrassing."

Shaking his head, Toran said, "I don't want to know."

"Well that's good since I wasn't volunteering to share," Cassandra said. "I was merely attempting to give you a little peace of mind."

Before Toran could say anything, Melissa's voice came over the comm system. _**"Captain, the Incepteris and the Var'mang are back."**_

"I'll be right out, Number One," Toran said as he stood up. Looking briefly at Cassandra, he said, "Thank you, Cassandra." And after a moment, "And please don't tell anyone else about Q and my bathtub."

Cassandra smiled as she stood and prepared to leave the ready room behind Toran. "Of course, not, sir. I'm a professional and as Ship's Counselor anything you say to me in private is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, so you needn't worry. Your secret is safe as I won't tell anyone."

-o-0-o-

"The source of the energy we detected earlier is a massive construct," Joran revealed. "It consists of a pair of two fifteen-kilometer long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving gyroscopic rings five kilometers across. Inside the rings is a massive core of some kind of blue, glowing energy that our computers couldn't identify, but whatever it is, it's definitely powerful."

"Indeed, and seemingly well beyond the technological levels of the ships that we scanned while we were in the area," Valdren revealed. "All of the ships appear to have power readings similar to the construct, but put out far less power and none of the ships have designs that are anywhere near similar to that of the construct, suggesting that it wasn't built by the same people who built the ships."

Toran nodded. "Okay and do you have any indication as to what this construct is for?"

"Yes, we do," Joran answered. "It appears to be some form of transportation device, as we watched two ships approach the construct, at which point a column of energy from the core enveloped the ship and then shot it forward and out of sight at speeds that exceeded Warp 10. If I had to compare it to our technology, I'd say that it most closely resembles a transwarp conduit, although definitely a very different design from what we use."

With a nod, Valdren said, "From the sensor readings it appears that when the ship is enveloped in the column of energy, the mass of the ship itself is reduced to being nearly non-existent, before it's propelled forward. Long-range scans, however, couldn't figure out where the two ships we saw use it ended up, so wherever they went it was beyond our sensor's range."

"Very interesting indeed," Toran said. "Anything you can tell me about the ships?"

Joran grunted. "Tactical analysis isn't good. For them, that is. The ships seem to use mostly railguns supported by lasers. Both of which our shields could easily block. They do seem to possess a form of kinetic barrier which I assume would work well in protecting them against weapons similar to their own, but our weapons would punch through them like they weren't even there."

"Indeed, I'd have to agree with that assessment," Valdren said. "If we fired on those ships, I doubt their barriers would last more than a second or two. I also doubt their hull could handle a sustained blast from any of our weapons. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if we could one-shot kill some of the weaker, smaller ships. Larger ships might take a few more hits, but would still go down quickly."

"That's interesting to know as a point of reference," Toran said. "Of course, we aren't going to be firing on them unless they give us cause to do so. And if their systems really are as weak as you suggest, hopefully they won't do that."

"While I don't subscribe to the Federation's philosophy on several things," Joran said, "in this case, I actually agree with you, brother. From a warrior's standpoint, fighting those ships would be like joining a group of nine armored warriors wielding bat'leths in order to fight a lone, unarmed and unarmored combatant. It wouldn't be a fair fight and in my opinion, there'd be no honor to be gained from it."

Of the expressions Toran could see on the faces of Joran's bridge crew, it looked like they agreed with their captain, but then they were his handpicked senior officers. Toran couldn't help but wonder, however, if all of the Var'mang's crew would agree with Joran on that statement. Somehow, he doubted it, but chose not to bring it up. He also wondered how the rest of the Klingon crew felt about cooperating with a Federation captain, even if it was their captain's twin brother, and couldn't help but worry that Joran's life could be in danger. Seeing as how on Klingon ships it was possible to challenge the captain to a duel to the death for the captaincy. Something which Toran always feared could be more likely considering that Joran was a Trill, rather than Klingon.

"Captain, there's a ship decloaking to port," Kyle said, as his hands flew over the keys of his console. After a moment, he looked more than a little surprised as he looked up and said, "It's a Federation ship and registering as the USS Ganymede, under the command of Captain William Bristol-Drake."

"The Ganymede?" Toran asked, clearly confused. "That's an Intrepid-class and I've never known that class to be equipped with a cloaking device."

Following the Hobus supernova which destroyed the Romulan planets of Romulus and Remus, the Treaty of Algeron which barred the Federation from developing or using cloaking technology was declared null and void. However, only a very small handful of ships since that time had been equipped with cloaking devices and to the best of the Toran's knowledge, there had never been an Intrepid-class ship that was so equipped.

"Be that as it may, the Ganymede has one," Kyle said, "and according to the power signatures, it's a Romulan cloaking device." Toran looked ready to respond to that, but before he could, Kyle added, "Captain, they'll hailing us."

"Onscreen," Toran said.

The main view screen stopped showing the bridges of the Incepteris and Var'mang at this point and instead switched over to the bridge of Ganymede, where Toran could see William sitting front and center. They did know each other, as Toran and William had more than once been assigned to the same battlegroup during the war. There was, however, a further connection between the two crews in that the Anteros's Chief Engineer, Logan Parker, and Chief Science Officer, Syrran Parker, both had identical twin siblings serving aboard the Ganymede, which had led to the two crews socializing with each other and becoming friendly.

"Well, Will, this is an unexpected surprise," Toran said. "I take it you also had a visit from Q?"

William nodded. "Indeed I did, Toran. However, unlike you and the others he sent first, he deigned to give me and Bryan a few additional details about just why he's sent us all here."

"I'm all ears," Toran said.

"Explanations can wait until we're all face to face," a feminine voice said from off-screen, before a woman that Toran immediately recognized walked into the frame.

"Admiral Janeway? I wasn't expecting to see you," Toran said.

Kathryn Janeway smiled and said, "Yes, well, Admiral Quinn wanted to send Jean-Luc initially, but he didn't wish to come out of retirement. Not that I blame him, seeing as how he is 105 years old. I think he more than deserves the rest that his retirement in France affords him. So, he sent me instead, figuring that my experience operating in unknown regions with no contact with Starfleet Command would be useful here."

"I can definitely see how that would be useful," Toran said. "And I agree that Ambassador Picard has more than earned his retirement."

Kathryn nodded and said, "Indeed. Now, Captain Ren, I invite you to transport over to the Ganymede. You may bring your First Officer and one other person of your choice. Then we can all meet and Captain Bristol-Drake and I can explain what's going on from here forward."

"Of course, Admiral, I'll be right over," Toran said, before the viewscreen went dark. Turning around, Toran added, "Commander Flores, Lt. Cmdr. Hawke, you're with me. Commander Elbrey, you have the bridge while I'm gone."

Cassandra nodded and said, "Yes, Captain."

-o-0-o-

A few minutes later, Toran and his two officers materialized in the Transporter Room aboard the Ganymede, where there was an officer standing by to escort them to the Conference Room. Upon arriving, they could see that they were the first ones to arrive, as there were only five other people in the room.

"Welcome, Captain Ren," Kathryn said. "I think you know Captain Bristol-Drake and his first officer?"

"Indeed, I do," Toran said with a smile as he nodded at William and Bryan and said, "Hello Will, Bryan." Both nodded in response as Toran turned to Commander Barin Troi, the Ganymede's Counselor, who was the half-Betazoid/half-Tavnian son of famed Betazoid Ambassador Lwaxana Troi and thus the half-brother of Deanna Riker. "Hello Barin, nice to see you again."

"You as well, Toran," Barin said with a smile. He normally would have called Toran by his rank and surname, but since the two crews had socialized with each other while off-duty they were friends. Of course, Barin and Toran were also ex-boyfriends, as they'd dated for about six months three and a half years ago, thus making Barin the last person that Toran had slept with, since as Q had said, he hadn't gotten laid in over three years.

Turning his eyes on the last occupant of the room, Toran smiled and said, "Lt. Paris, nice to see you again. I didn't realize you'd been stationed on the Ganymede. Last I heard you were Chief of Security on the Kirk."

"You as well, Captain," Lt. Miral Paris said. "The transfer to the Ganymede was very recent, as Admiral Quinn felt that their belief in me as the Kuvah'Magh might help smooth things over a little with the Klingon crew."

"That's likely enough to be true," Toran said, as he quickly introduced his officers to Janeway before the three of them took their seats to wait for the Romulan and Klingon delegations.

It wasn't long before the doors opened and Commander Valdren Lareth walked into the room, along with two other male Romulans: his First Officer, Subcommander Tovan Khev, and his Chief Tactical Officer and Chief of Security, Centurion T'varen Mendak. Just as they'd taken their seats after another round of introductions were made, the doors opened again to admit Captain Joran Dex, along with two Klingon males: his First Officer, Commander K'Gan, and his Chief of Security, Lieutenant Commander T'Proth.

Once everyone was seated, Kathryn said, "Alright, now that we're all here, as I previously said when I contacted all of you to invite you here, Admiral Quinn has sent me here to lead the Federation delegation." Turning to Joran and Valdren, she added, "And while you technically aren't under any obligation to do so, Proconsul D'Tan, Chancellor J'mpok and Emperor Kahless II request that you follow my lead for as long as we remain here in this reality. Because we are now completely cut off from contact with our governments, barring Q allowing us the occasional brief window of communication. He seemed to indicate he might allow that, but as his godmother, I know his expressions well enough to know that he was mainly saying that to appease everyone involved and probably has no intention of actually doing it."

Joran and Valdren nodded, but remained silent, as Kathryn continued, "Now, before we do anything else, however, Lt. Paris has a message to read from Chancellor J'mpok for you, Captain Dex."

Joran looked intrigued, as Miral stood and grabbed the PADD that was resting on the table in front of her. "Captain Joran Dex, in recognition of your services to the Empire, I have decided with the support of Emperor Kahless II and a majority of the High Council to bestow upon you the right to found the Great House of Joran, in addition to making you the High Council's official ambassador to the other reality. You will henceforth be the Council's representative in that reality and given your record, I am confident that you will represent both the Empire and the Council with honor. _Qapla'!"_

"I'm sure you're surprised, Captain Dex," Will said, as Joran nodded, his expression indicating that he clearly was. "From what Chancellor J'mpok said he wanted the Council to have a pair of trusted eyes and ears here. The council decided that only a member of a Great House should represent them. However, nobody on the High Council or any of the existing Great Houses were keen on sending someone here. So, since you were already here, Ambassador Worf and Lady Sirella of House Martok suggested granting you the right to form your own house. There was a great deal of resistance at first, considering that you're not a Klingon by blood, but much of the resistance disappeared after Emperor Kahless vouched for you and recounted some of your achievements, including braving Gre'thor and fighting Fek'Ihr himself to put a stop to the Fek'Ihri invasion."

"Of course there were some who doubted that you actually did go to Gre'thor," Bryan added. "As some believe that the whole experience was a fabrication of Hur'q technology and the whole invasion by the Fek'Ihri Horde was perhaps retribution for the loss of the Sword of Kahless. But, enough people on the High Council believe they were the true Fek'Ihri of legend that when combined with your other achievements, including your help in defending Qo'noS during the Undine invasion, that you deserved the honor."

Kathryn nodded. "Commander Lareth, you should know that Proconsul D'Tan has also decided to make you the Romulan Republic's ambassador to this reality and thus he's granted you the diplomatic title of Romulan Legatus." Valdren nodded his head in understanding, before Kathryn continued. "Anyway, if you'll all have a look at the PADDs that Lt. Paris is handing out, you'll see a summary of what was said earlier in the meeting between Q, his father, Captain Bristol-Drake, Commander Drake, Admiral Quinn, D'Tan, and the Chancellor. After you've read that information, I have some further information to share."

"Q actually turned J'mpok into an Oprelian amoeba?" Toran asked, prompting Will to nod. Shaking his head, he said, "Oh I would have liked to see that. I don't bear any ill will towards the Chancellor, but it probably isn't using one's best judgement to do something you were specifically told not to do by an omnipotent being with unlimited control over matter, space, and time."

"True," Joran agreed, as even his officers indicated that it probably was a mistake on the Chancellor's part. They also took offense to Q's sniveling baby comment, but they liked to think that they wouldn't be dumb enough to anger a being who could literally wipe them from existence with a snap of his fingers. "At any rate, these Reapers sound terrible." Looking at his crew, he added, "I sense several glorious additions to the Var'mang's Record of Battle coming soon."

"Aye, it will be glorious," K'Gan agreed.

"Indeed it seems you will get the chance in time," Kathryn said. "Since I'm his godmother, after the meeting with the government officials ended, Q was nice enough to give me a little more information, including a partial star chart of the area that he says you explored before the Ganymede's arrival." Pushing a button on the table, a 3D holographic image of a planet soon hovered over the table, as she said, "The planet you found earlier is called Terra Nova and it's one of this reality's first human colonies outside of the Sol System."

"Did Q tell you anything about the strange construct in the neighboring star system?" Kyle asked.

"Indeed, he did. It's called a mass relay. Apparently there's two different kinds, primary relays and secondary relays. A primary relay connects to only one other primary relay but can cover a much larger distance. A secondary relay connects to multiple other secondary relays, but the distance they can cover is much shorter. However, thanks to the relay network, the inhabitants of this reality theoretically can travel anywhere in the entire galaxy in a matter of a few minutes."

"Theoretically?" Valdren asked.

"Most of the relay network is actually offline," Will explained, since he'd been with Admiral Janeway when Q decided to share this information. "There's a form of supranational government here called the Citadel Council which has passed a number of laws known as the Citadel Conventions. One of those conventions is that no member or associate race of the Council will activate a relay without knowing the location of the corresponding relay. Apparently, there was a time when they indiscriminately activated every relay they found, but doing so eventually led to their encounter of the Rachni… a highly territorial and aggressive insectoid race who nearly wiped out all other life in the galaxy in the following Rachni Wars, which lasted for over 290 years before the Rachni were declared extinct following a mass extermination effort by the other races of the galaxy."

"It's sad that they had to be exterminated," Toran said. "Was there no other way?"

"The Rachni are similar to the Borg in that they have a hive mind," Kathryn said. "They're fully organic, however, and they don't assimilate others. However, for most of the Rachni Wars, communication with the Rachni Queens who guided the various hives was impossible, since they tended to live in tunnels deep below ground which were filled with toxic gas that was lethal to all of the Council races. So the Rachni won almost every engagement because of their sheer numbers and after over 200 years of war, the races of the galaxy were not feeling particularly diplomatic."

"So how were the Rachni defeated?" Barin asked.

Bryan explained. "The Salarians, a Council member race of amphibious bipeds, technologically uplifted a race called the Krogan, whose bodies contain a number of secondary organs and thus they're immune to most toxins. So the Krogan troops went in and systemically destroyed every Rachni they could find, which put an end to the war. However, after the war there were then issues with the Krogan who were able now to explore the stars and were reproducing at alarming rates, much faster than any other race in the galaxy. The Krogan also had a tendency to begin settling on planets and claiming them as their own, regardless of whether or not the planet had already been colonized and claimed by another race."

"I can't imagine that went over well," Syrran stated.

"Indeed it didn't," Kathryn said. "So in 700 CE, the Krogan Rebellions began and lasted for several decades. With the Krogan ability to reproduce so much more than any other race, the other races couldn't compete and were basically facing a repeat of the Rachni Wars. So the Salarians developed a bio-weapon known as the Genophage which was then deployed by another Council member race known as the Turians."

Bryan took over at this point and said, "The Genophage didn't exterminate the Krogan, as there was some remorse over the extermination of the Rachni, but it did greatly curtail the Krogan ability to reproduce, making only one in every one thousand pregnancies viable. The Genophage is also genetic, so every new Krogan born is infected with it from birth. Due to their warlike nature, they're now a dying race, although there's still plenty of them around, especially considering that they have an extremely long lifespan. In fact, even though it's now 2183 CE, there's still living Krogan who fought in the Krogan Rebellions."

"Well that's impressive," T'Proth said, as K'Gan nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, as to the makeup of the Council," Kathryn continued, "there's only three races that have a seat on the Council. The aforementioned Turians and Salarians, and another race called the Asari. Most of the other races of the galaxy, including humanity, are associate members of the Council, meaning they are required to obey the Citadel Conventions and are allowed to maintain an embassy on the Citadel—a massive space station that's the heart of the Citadel government—but have no authority or say in the Council's decisions."

"The human Systems Alliance," Will said, "which is essentially this universe's version of Starfleet has been pushing for a council seat, however, they thus far haven't gotten one. And a few of the other associate races have begun to resent humanity for what they view as the human's arrogant belief that they should be granted a seat on the Council after so short a period of time, as apparently humanity has only been able to explore beyond the Sol System since 2149 CE and have only had an embassy on the Citadel since 2165. The Council, however, was founded in 500 BCE by the Asari and Salarians and some of the associate members of the Council have been waiting for over a thousand years for a seat, so humanity pushing so hard for one after only being an associate member for less than 20 years doesn't endear them to the others."

"Why have some of the races been waiting so long?" Toran asked.

Kathryn smiled. "It's a good question and at least partly because being a member race requires having a large enough economy and a large enough fleet to be able to help defend Citadel space and many of the races simply don't meet that requirement. Humanity argues that they do, but thus far the Council hasn't given them a seat, probably because they fear that it would cause issues with the other races if the newcomers were given seats before they were."

"Anyway, on the subject of the mass relays," Bryan said, "they're powered by what's known as Element Zero or Eezo for short. According to Q, the races of the galaxy believe that they were built by the Protheans, a race who lived 50,000 years ago and had a galaxy-spanning empire. However, he rather cryptically stated that we should quantum date the relays and even the Citadel. He didn't specifically say why, but I get the feeling that the relays and the Citadel are a lot older than the races of this reality think they are."

Will nodded. "Indeed, I could be wrong, but given the information at hand, I think the relays and the Citadel were actually built by the Reapers millions of years ago and that they're part of their means to control the races of the galaxy. The races here use what they believe to be reverse-engineered Prothean technology for almost everything and don't develop anything new, thus ensuring that the Reapers will always win."

"An interesting thought," Tovan said. "Definitely worth investigating. We took several sensor readings earlier, although we didn't think to quantum date it. Of course, we were cloaked when we took what readings we did and quantum dating would require more power to the sensors than we can devote while remaining cloaked."

"While we're on the subject of cloaking technology," Kathryn said, "I'm sure you all noticed that the Ganymede is now in possession of a cloaking device." There were several nods, before she continued. "You may also have noticed that it's a Romulan cloaking device, which was loaned to us for installation on the Ganymede by the Romulan Republic. We've also brought one for the Anteros, as it was agreed that having all of our ships here be able to cloak would be advantageous."

"Another upgrade that was performed on the Ganymede before we left," Will said, "was the installation of an ablative armor generator that's basically a copy of the one that was originally provided to Voyager by Admiral Janeway's future self. The races of this reality use mostly railguns and while our shields will probably block the majority of their weapons, it was believed that a second line of defense would be a good idea and thus the Anteros will also be upgraded with the ablative generator. And Admiral Quinn has given his permission for the Var'mang and the Incepteris to receive the upgrade as well."

"The Ganymede has also received a weapons upgrade courtesy of the Klingon Empire," Bryan revealed. "It seems they've been working on a way to expand the firing arc of their beam weaponry from the standard 250 degrees to a full 360. Which they've now managed to do, but have also created a system which will allow us to change the energy type of our weapons with the push of a button. So the Ganymede now has the standard phaser arrays, but can also switch over to antiproton beams. Additionally, we have the standard photon and quantum torpedoes, plus antiproton torpedo launchers which were developed in part with the energy of a defeated Crystalline Entity, making them much more effective."

"I questioned why this upgrade was necessary," Will said. "Since during the meeting with the government officials, Q made it seem like our technology would be vastly superior to that of the Reapers. Q wasn't very forthcoming but suggested that we primarily use the standard weapons such as phasers and keep the antiproton weaponry in reserve as a nasty surprise. The Anteros will also be upgraded as the Ganymede was, while the Var'mang and Incepteris will get a similar system."

"Does this mean we're going to have switch over to beam weaponry?" Valdren asked. "I'm not sure I want to give up my cannons."

Joran nodded and indicated that he would prefer to keep his cannons as well, as which point Kathryn said, "No you won't be using beam weaponry, as both D'Tan and J'mpok had a feeling you wouldn't want to. So you'll be using a similar system that will allow the Var'mang to use its currently outfitted dual heavy disruptor cannons or switch over to dual heavy antiproton cannons. The firing range, however, has been improved to now be 90 degrees instead of only 45 degrees. And you'll receive the same torpedo upgrade that the Ganymede and Anteros will."

"The Incepteris, meanwhile, will be able to continue using its currently outfitted Romulan plasma weaponry," Bryan stated, "with the ability to switch over to the antiproton weaponry at the push of a button."

"Okay then, I can deal with that," Joran said, as Valdren nodded. "So, how do we proceed from here? Are we supposed to make contact with the races of this reality?"

"For the time being, we're going to focus only on installing the upgrades previously outlined," Kathryn answered. "Once we've done that, we'll make contact with the Systems Alliance and through them the Citadel Council. As for why first contact will be with the Systems Alliance it's because we're in their space at the moment, since Terra Nova and the planet of Eden Prime, which is in the same system as the mass relay, is their territory. Although that is disputed."

"Who disputes it?" Toran asked.

"The Batarian Hegemony," Will revealed. "Much like our own version of the galaxy, this one is also sectioned, only instead of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants, here it's Council Space, the Attican Traverse, the Terminus Systems, and Geth Space. Those sections are sometimes further subdivided into additional sections and we're currently in the area known as the Skyllian Verge in the Attican Traverse. After the Systems Alliance began colonizing here, the Batarians petitioned to have the Verge deemed a Zone of Batarian Interest which was only open to Batarian colonization, thus all the humans would have to leave. The Council denied the request, however, stating that all unsettled worlds in the Verge were open to human colonization or any other race who had the means and desire to colonize them."

"The Batarians didn't like that," Bryan added. "And have since become a rogue state, as they've shutdown their embassy on the Citadel and cut off all diplomatic communication. They've turned to piracy to try to convince humanity to leave and to makes matters worse, they also engage in the slave trade."

"Ultimately the hostility between the two led to the Skyllian Blitz of 2176," Kathryn revealed, "which was an attack on a human planet called Elysium by Batarian-funded pirates and slavers. Unfortunately, for them the attack was repulsed and the Alliance later in 2178 attacked the Batarian moon of Torfan, which they used as a staging ground for their attacks. The attack there was devastating enough that the Batarians retreated to their own systems and have rarely been seen in Council space since. Q was nice enough to provide this historical information, but said he would let us discover everything else moving forward. We'll upload copies of all of this to your computers' databanks, so you'll have access to all of it to go over at your leisure."

Toran nodded and said, "Well, that's good, but for the time being, unless there's anything else, I suppose we should get busy installing our new upgrades."

"Indeed, we should," Kathryn agreed. "And there's nothing else for the moment."

-o-0-o-

Meanwhile, several light years away on Earth, Lieutenant Commander Rhys Shepard was lying flat on his back in the Chicago apartment that he shared with his twin brother, Lieutenant Commander Finn Shepard. Rhys's right leg was bent at the knee with his foot planted on the bed as he ran the fingers of his right hand through his black hair. The fingers of his left hand, however, were currently wrapped tightly around Finn's penis, as he moved his hand up and done the length of it. Finn was in a similar position, with his left leg bent at the knee and the corresponding foot on the bed. Instead of running his fingers through his hair, however, Finn was currently using his left hand to play with his left nipple, as he used his right to jerk off Rhys.

There were probably people who would initially find it very strange that a pair of twin brothers would jerk each other off, but Rhys and Finn were very close and had been for the entirety of their lives. They had shared every single intimate moment that either of them had ever experienced and had stopped jerking themselves off in favor of doing each other when they were sixteen. The reason for this was partly due to them being twins, but more so to do with the fact that they shared a liver and a leg.

Their parents, Tristan and Hannah Shepard, had decided not to have their twin sons separated when they were born due to their shared leg. If they'd both had two legs and it was just the liver connecting their sons, they may have consented to separation. However, since separation would have resulted in Finn only having one leg, they opted to leave the decision up to Rhys and Finn, since they would be the ones most affected by it. While the Shepard brothers had, like any other pair of brothers, had disagreements and fights with one another as they grew up, they'd still always been very close and worked well together as a team. As such, Tristan and Hannah were not surprised when their sons told them when they were only twelve that they weren't interested in being separated, although they did secretly wonder if that decision would change as they got older. Obviously since Rhys and Finn were now twenty-nine and still joined, it never did.

By the 22nd century, manipulation of the human genome had become commonplace, with many rich people genetically engineering custom-built fetuses to grow into stronger, smarter, and more attractive adults. There was also screening and treatments available which could be performed on embryos still in the womb which would eliminate everything from cystic fibrosis to nearsightedness. Tristan and Hannah, however, were career Alliance Navy officers and couldn't afford some of the more expensive treatments and even if they could, the ship they were stationed on didn't have the necessary facilities to begin with.

Additionally, while the various treatments had pretty much allowed for the eradication of most diseases, conjoined twins, which wasn't a disease, were still something that happened from time to time, although they were now usually born in ways that would not be life threatening to either twin if they remained joined. And cases of parasitic twins were almost unheard of. There were some doctors and scientists who'd been experimenting with ways to completely eliminate conjoined twins, but by the time Hannah became pregnant in 2153 and gave birth to Rhys and Finn in April of 2154 the results of those experiments had not progressed to a point where Tristan and Hannah were comfortable allowing any of the related treatments to be used on their children, as many of them still carried potentially negative side-effects.

The late Tristan Shepard also had a very personal reason for refusing any treatments related to trying to separate his sons while they were still in the womb and that was that when he was seven, his mother had gotten pregnant with a pair of conjoined twins. Tristan's parents consented to the treatments to try and manipulate their unborn sons' genomes to eradicate their conjoined status. Since the treatments were still experimental however, while the treatment succeeded in the goal of separating them while they were still in the womb, they were born blind and deaf, and both had a severe heart condition.

It was later determined that all of those problems had been directly caused by the treatments they'd undergone in utero in order to separate them and the doctors involved had been so elated about the successful separation that they neglected to check if their treatments had caused other problems. Unfortunately, by the time Tristan's brothers were born, the damage to their systems was too extensive to fix and they died from massive heart attacks before they were two. Needless to say Tristan was dead set against any such in utero treatments being done on Rhys and Finn and Hannah agreed with him.

"Oh, I'm gonna…" Rhys moaned as Finn moaned, "So am I…" moments before they both shot their loads all over their stomachs and each other's hands.

Lying still for a few moments, as they caught their breath, Rhys and Finn finally turned to one another and gave each other a quick peck on the lips—a habit that had been born from both their closeness and from years of watching their parents do it—before Finn reached over and grabbed a towel to clean themselves up with.

After a moment of silence, Rhys asked, "What do you say we go to a club tonight? Handjobs are fine and all, but I'd really like to get properly laid."

Finn laughed and said, "Yeah, same here, although I'm getting sick of one-night stands."

"So am I, but until we find our Mr. Rights, we don't really have much of a choice unless we want to remain celibate and I know I sure as hell don't."

"True and I don't want to be celibate any more than you do, bro," Finn agreed, as he couldn't help but think once again how happy he was that he and Rhys were both gay, as he was sure it would have been pretty awkward if one of them was gay and the other had been straight. Not as awkward as it could have been if they'd shared sex organs, which they didn't but still awkward. Finn still remembered how he'd agonized for months about telling Rhys that he liked guys instead of girls, only to find out when he'd finally worked up the courage to say something that Rhys had been agonizing about the same thing. Finding out that they'd both worried that the other was straight and that coming out would cause problems between them had made them both have a good laugh, before they then celebrated by jerking each other off for the first time.

Any further conversation between them, however, was cut short when a beeping noise indicated that they had an incoming call. Sighing, they stood up and hurriedly pulled on a pair of black sweatpants, grey t-shirts, and their black N7 hoodies, before heading over to the computer panel and opening the call.

The caller turned out to be a dark-skinned, middle-aged man with graying hair that Rhys and Finn didn't recognize. "Rhys and Finn Shepard, I assume?" the man asked.

Rhys nodded. "Yes and you are?"

"Donnel Udina," the man answered. "Systems Alliance Ambassador to the Citadel."

"What can we do for you, Mr. Ambassador?" Finn asked, as he wondered why humanity's ambassador on the Citadel was calling them, as he was pretty much the last person he expected to be hearing from.

"Are you aware of the fact that for several months now, the Alliance has been working with the Turian Hierarchy to build a new state-of-the-art stealth reconnaissance ship?"

Rhys nodded. "Yes, we'd seen mentions of it in a few of our N7 briefs. Why?"

"Well, the ship is finished and has been placed under the command of Captain David Anderson," Udina stated. "I just spoke with him and Admiral Hackett and they both suggested that we offer the two of you the position of Co-Executive Officers aboard the new ship, dubbed the Normandy."

Rhys and Finn were silent for a moment as they digested this information. They'd finished their last mission about a month ago and had been on Earth ever since, wondering when their next assignment would come up. Neither of them, however, had thought that their next assignment would be as the Co-Executive Officers of a new state-of-the-art ship.

"We're flattered to be considered, of course," Finn said.

"Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson both raved about you," Udina said. "I'm actually the one who first mentioned you as a possibility, although at the time I was unaware of your condition." Rhys and Finn easily picked up on the obvious note of distaste in his tone as he said the word condition. "The Admiral and Captain Anderson are both of the mind, however, that your condition will have no effect on your ability to perform well."

"I appreciate that Captain Anderson and Admiral Hackett have so much faith in us," Finn said, as Rhys asked, "Ambassador, do you have a problem with Finn's and my condition, as you put it? You've said it twice now and your tone suggests that you do."

Udina looked a bit angry to be put on the spot, but finally said, "To be perfectly honest, if I'd known about it beforehand, I wouldn't have suggested you. However, what's done is done and the Captain and the Admiral both think you're the best men for the job, so I'm conceding to their point of view." After a moment of silence, he said, more to himself, but loud enough that Finn and Rhys still heard it, "I just hope I don't come to regret that."

Knowing that Rhys was about to say something that he probably shouldn't, Finn placed a hand on his arm to stop him and then said, "We'll do our very best not to disappoint you, Ambassador. When do we need to report?"

"There's a supply ship scheduled to leave Chicago tomorrow for Arcturus Station," Udina said. "As the Normandy is currently there and due to leave for its shakedown cruise in two days' time, I suggest that you be on that supply ship."

"Of course, Ambassador," Finn said, before the call ended.

"That son of a bitch," Rhys said. "I'm sure that if he suggested us that he must have looked at our service records beforehand. How could he not know that we're conjoined? And I resent the implication that we wouldn't be up to the task because of it. We're N7's for pity sake and we've both been awarded the bloody Star of Terra. That wouldn't have happened if we weren't competent."

Finn sighed. "You should be used to people doubting our abilities by now. We've only been dealing with it our entire lives."

"That doesn't make it right."

Holding up his hands in a placating gesture, Finn said, "Hey you're preaching to the choir here, bro. Still, we've dealt with people like Udina before. People who thought that the two of us being conjoined meant that we couldn't possibly perform as well as others and we've proven them all wrong. We'll do the same with Udina."

Rhys sighed and took a deep breath, before saying, "I know. It just gets annoying when we keep getting people who continue to think that we can't possibly be competent because we're connected to each other. If it wasn't for us martialing a defense until reinforcements arrived, hundreds if not thousands would have died on Elysium during the Blitz. We were both awarded with the Star of Terra because of our actions there, which in the eyes of many makes us heroes."

"I know, Rhys," Finn said. "I agree it's annoying, but I think as long as there's people in this world, it's something we're just going to have to deal with. Now, since we have to be on that supply ship tomorrow, we should probably start packing and make any other necessary arrangements, as I somehow doubt we'll be back here anytime soon."

"You're right," Rhys said. "We should probably also call Mom. You know she'll be furious if we don't call and tell her about our new posting."

"True," Finn said, before they moved into the bedroom and began gathering up their belongings.

-o-0-o-

To be continued.

And there's Chapter Two of 'The Q Effect'. Now, I'm sure some are probably wondering why I've made Rhys and Finn Shepard conjoined twins. The reason is because I played through the trilogy with both characters and due to the limitations of the character creator, they both ended up looking the same when I created my non-default male Shepards. I liked both characters and couldn't decide which one of them to use in this story, so I figured I'd turn them into an inseparable team as that would also explain why they were both assigned to the Normandy in the same position.

I've also never seen it done before in any of the Mass Effect stories that I've read, so I figured it would add an extra layer of originality to the story. Of course, those of you who read my works in other fandoms (namely Harry Potter) will know that it's a theme I've used in my other works as well and I figured what the hell?

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to contact me in a review, by email, my Yahoo group, or on Twitter JVascardi. Alternatively, you can also try to contact me via Skype (text messaging only) at .


	3. Chapter 3

The Q Effect  
Written by J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relate to Star Trek are the property of CBS Studios, Inc. and/or Paramount Pictures, while all featured characters and places that that related to the game Star Trek Online are the property of Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and finally all featured characters and places that relate to Mass Effect are the property of Bioware/EA. I'm not profiting on this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the shows, games, books, or other media.

Main Pairings: Rhys Shepard/Kaidan Alenko, Finn Shepard/Toran Ren

Secondary Pairings: Kyle Hawke-Derikson/Nathan Derikson, Logan Parker/Syrran Parker, Lucas Parker/Serron Parker, William Bristol-Drake/Bryan Drake, and the possibility of others in the future.

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Slash, Language, Violence, M/M Sex, Threesome, Foursome, Original Characters (others may get added as the story progresses)

Crossover: Mass Effect/Star Trek Online

Summary: Two vastly different universes collide when Q decides to send a pair of Federation vessels, along with a Klingon ship and a Romulan ship, into another reality, on a mission that could very well determine the fate of both universes.

-o-0-o-

Chapter Three

-o-0-o-

Over the next two or three days, the crews of the Anteros, Var'mang, and Incepteris were all working hard on installing the new systems on their ships that had already been installed on the Ganymede. The particularly challenging one was the ablative armor generators, since installing those required the crew to suit up in environmental suits in order to space walk on the hulls of their respective ships. Of course, figuring out a way for the Starfleet designed armor to be integrated into the Incepteris and powered by its artificial quantum singularity core had also been a challenge, but thankfully not an insurmountable one.

Meanwhile, a combined team from all four ships was working on studying the sensor readings that they'd thus far been able to take of the mass relays to see if they could not only adapt the technology but also see if it would be possible for the four ships to use a mass relay. Considering that none of them used an Eezo core they weren't entirely certain if they could use one of the mass relays. They still had the warp drives, of course, and all four ships were equipped with quantum slipstream drives. They were, however, unable to make use of the transwarp abilities of the ships since there was no transwarp network in this galaxy as there was in their own.

"Do we really need to use these relays?" asked Lt. Hosu, the Var'mang's female Orion Chief Science Officer. "We have the slipstream drives, so that should be good enough."

"Normally, I'd agree with you," Bryan said. "However, you have to remember that at the moment we don't have detailed star charts of this galaxy. Which makes using the slipstream dangerous since we'd run the risk of ramming into a planet or the center of a star that we didn't know was there."

Syrran nodded. "Additionally, the slipstream can only be maintained for about 30-40 seconds at a stretch and then can't be activated again for several minutes. Thus, while we can journey a good distance with it, it would be faster to use the relay network, especially if we're trying to get from one side of the galaxy to the other."

"It's really too bad that we don't have a transwarp network here," lamented Centurion Vanetra Arrai, the Incepteris's female Romulan Chief Science Officer. "That would be even faster than the slipstream. I'm not sure how it would compare to the relay network, although from what Admiral Janeway said about primary and secondary relays, if one were using secondary relays, it's entirely possible one would need to make several jumps which could end up taking longer than a transwarp jump."

"I wonder, would it be possible to modify the relays to act as a transwarp network?" Hosu asked. "I don't mean modify them so that they no longer perform as they currently do, just add a functionality to them that ships equipped with the right systems could use."

Everyone was silent for a moment as they considered this, before Bryan shook his head and said, "It's definitely an interesting thought, but it would have to wait until we understand the relays better. Plus, we can't just assume that it'd be okay for us to start adding functions to this galaxy's tech without permission."

"And just who should we ask for permission?" Vanetra asked. "The races currently using them don't own them and if Captain Bristol-Drake's theory is right, it was the Reapers who built them. I don't know about any of you, but I've already survived being assimilated by the Borg. I can do without being harvested by the Reapers, which from what Q shared is their likely response if we did contact them."

"You both have a point," Syrran said as he looked at Bryan and Vanetra. "For now, however, I think the most logical course of action would be to study the relays and find out as much as we can about them and that will probably require us to make ourselves known to the races of this galaxy. Because unless we can find an out of the way, rarely used relay to run scans on while not cloaked it'll be impossible to run deeper scans of the relays without revealing ourselves." At this point, he visibly shivered and said, "As for the Reapers, I agree that contacting them for any reason would be illogical."

"Did you just shiver in fear?" Hosu asked. "You are a Vulcan, right?"

Syrran smiled. "Yes, Lieutenant, I am a Vulcan. However, I was born on Earth at Starfleet Medical headquarters and grew up on a Starfleet ship among a mostly human crew. Despite the efforts of my father and late mother, my brother Serron and I, and our younger brother Sethan, haven't fully embraced the Vulcan emotional control to the level that they'd probably have preferred. I've also been married to a human for twenty-four years so I'd be lying if I said that also didn't have an effect on my personality."

"Wait you and your husband have been married for twenty-four years?" Vanetra asked, prompting Syrran to nod. "Wow. I know that Vulcans are longer lived than humans and age more slowly as a result, but I saw you briefly with whom I assume was your husband when I came aboard and he doesn't look anywhere near old enough to be married that long."

Syrran nodded, as he remembered that he and Logan were together when the crew of the Incepteris arrived onboard the Anteros a couple of hours ago. "Yes, my husband is Logan Parker, this ship's Chief Engineer. As for him not looking old enough to be married for twenty-four years, this will probably surprise you, but he's older than I am by a year and I'm 42. His twin brother Lucas, the Ganymede's Chief Engineer, sometimes jokes that they just have very good genes to have remained looking so young. Although in truth it's thanks to a serum that my brother Sethan invented, which dramatically slows down the aging process."

"Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this serum?" Hosu asked. "I realize that the Federation and the Empire have been at war for five years, but unless this serum also reverses the aging process, I'll assume that your husband has been taking it for longer than five years."

"He and his brother have been taking it for seven years," Syrran revealed. "And you haven't heard about it because it's not widely distributed. The reason being that it requires a mind-meld or similar telepathic connection and currently only works on couples where at least one member is telepathic. Sethan has been experimenting on expanding the serum to be useful to non-telepaths and those not coupled with telepaths, but so far he hasn't managed to do so."

Bryan grinned and said, "I'm well acquainted with Lucas and Serron Parker, since we serve together on the Ganymede, but also with their twin brothers, Logan and Syrran. And here's an interesting tidbit for you… all four of them were delivered by Dr. Jadzia Ren."

"Why is that interesting?" Vanetra asked.

Syrran rolled his eyes at Bryan for bringing that up, but answered, "Because it means that Logan and I technically serve under the person who delivered us." At Vanetra's confused look, he added, "Dr. Jadzia Ren died in 2400, but all of her memories, including those of delivering Logan, his brother Lucas, Serron, and myself live on in Captain Toran Ren, since Jadzia was the former host and Toran is the current host of the Ren symbiont."

Vanetra shook her head. "I've never understood Trill or why being a host to a symbiont is so coveted by them. Maybe it was all the Borg implants that were forced on me while I was a drone and a dislike of the collective hive mind, but I would never wish to share my body with another consciousness, especially when that consciousness comes from what is essentially a giant worm implanted in their abdomens."

"I was a bit put off by it originally myself," Hosu said. "However, serving under Captain Dex has altered my opinion a bit. When I first met Captain Dex, he didn't strike me as an appropriate commanding officer for a Klingon ship, but I quickly saw the error in my thinking. While it's true that Captain Dex himself is an engineer, he does have a myriad of other skills, including an extensive knowledge of hand to hand combat. In fact one of the Dex symbiont's former hosts placed first in the Bat'leth Tournament on Forcas III several times, which Captain Dex has done once now himself. Having attended the Klingon Academy, he would have been trained to use a bat'leth, but I'm sure having the memories of a past champion helped him."

Syrran nodded and said, "Indeed, Captain Ren is also an engineer, but has a very varied skill set, including medicine, diplomacy, art, music, and even gourmet cooking. As for the appeal, if you really stop to think about it, it's almost a form of immortality as your memories will go on for far longer than most other species could ever hope that their memories live on. Of course, symbionts aren't immortal, but it's not at all uncommon for them to live for centuries. Captain Ren, despite being only 32 has over 400 years' worth of memories and experiences."

"I suppose that's true enough," Vanetra said. There was a pause in the conversation for a minute or so at this point, before the group got back to work on what they were supposed to be doing.

-o-0-o-

"You're both in perfect health," Dr. Karin Chakwas said, as she finished examining Rhys and Finn a few days later. They hadn't had any particular medical complaints which had led them to the sickbay on the Normandy, but Dr. Chakwas had still wanted to examine them so that she could add her own notes to the medical records that had been forwarded to her when they'd been assigned to the crew.

"Thanks, Doc," Finn said with a smile.

Rhys, meanwhile, scowled and asked, "How much of this examination was actually necessary? Or were you just entertaining your curiosity about the conjoined twins?"

"I assure you, Commander, my curiosity had nothing to do with it," Chakwas responded. "While I will admit a certain amount of curiosity as I've never treated conjoined twins before, that is not the reason that I asked to examine you. Just ask any other member of the crew that you like. I've examined each and every one of them, including Captain Anderson and the Spectre that the Council assigned to the ship. For as long as you're aboard this ship, I'm responsible for your medical care, so I wanted to familiarize myself with the two of you, just as I have with everyone else."

Rhys sighed and said, "Don't even say it, Finn. I'll deposit the fifty credits in your account later today."

"Fifty credits?" Chakwas asked, with a raised eyebrow.

Finn grinned. "Rhys and I had a bet. I said that you were just doing your job and being a good doctor by wanting to examine us. Rhys, however, figured that you were just like the numerous other doctors that we've seen over the years who simply wanted to poke and prod us, just so that could say that they've treated a pair of conjoined twins."

"Well, I'm happy to have proven you wrong, Commander," Chakwas said with a smile to Rhys.

After a moment, during which another person entered the room, although he was unseen by the others already in the room, Rhys asked, "Am I the only one who finds it odd that the Council assigned a Spectre to a ship for a simple shakedown run?"

"There's clearly more going on than just a shakedown run," the unseen person said, prompting Rhys, Finn, and Chakwas to turn in the direction of the voice and see Alliance Marine Corporal Richard Jenkins standing there. "I grew up on Eden Prime and it's really not the kind of place that Spectres visit, so there's something that Nihlus isn't telling us about this mission."

"That's crazy talk, Jenkins," Chakwas said. "Captain Anderson is in charge on this ship and he doesn't take orders from a Spectre."

"Not his choice, Doc," Jenkins said. "Spectres don't answer to anyone. They can go anywhere and do anything they want, including killing anyone who gets in their way."

Chakwas shook her head. "You watch far too many spy vids, young man."

Turning to Rhys and Finn, Jenkins asked, "What do you think, Commander? Er… Commanders? We won't be staying on Eden Prime too long, will we? Because I'm itching for some real action and growing up there I know I'm not going to get it on Eden Prime."

"I sincerely hope you're kidding, Jenkins," Chakwas admonished. "The kind of action that you're talking about usually ends up with me patching you up here in the infirmary."

"First off, Commander is fine, Corporal," Finn said. "Rhys and I a long time ago agreed to share the singular title of Commander Shepard, as if there was only one of us, even though that's technically not true. It makes things easier, especially in a combat situation."

"And you need to calm down, Jenkins," Rhys added. "This is just another mission and a good soldier keeps his cool when he's on a mission."

"Sorry, Commander, but this waiting is killing me," Jenkins said. "I've never been on a mission like this, not one with a real Spectre aboard."

"As I said, just calm down," Rhys said. "Keeping a cool head is key to a successful mission. So, just keep your head down, follow our orders, and you'll do fine."

"That's easy for you to say. You two proved yourselves during the Blitz so everyone knows what you can do, but this is my chance to really prove myself to the Alliance brass."

Shaking his head, Finn said, "You're young, Corporal, and you've got a long career ahead of you so don't do something stupid to mess it up."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to screw this up," Jenkins assured Finn. Then after a moment, he said, "Anyway, I'm reporting for my examination as requested, Doctor."

"Thank you, Jenkins," Chakwas said. "Just have a seat while I finish up with Commander Shepard here."

"You did make a few good points though, Jenkins," Rhys said. "What do you know about the Spectres, anyway?"

"Only what I've heard," Chakwas answered before Jenkins could, although Rhys hadn't directed the question at anyone specific. "They work directly for the Citadel Council, usually working alone or in small groups. They don't have any official power, however, as they're basically a shadow organization mandated with protecting and preserving galactic stability."

"Protect at any cost, Doctor," Jenkins added. "Spectres operate above the law."

"Above the law?" Finn asked, as Jenkins nodded. Since he knew there were no human Spectres, Finn hadn't really paid much attention to the organization at all, being far too concerned with his own life and career to really care too much. But now that he was actually in the position of being on the same ship as one, a lot of questions were coming to his mind. "How do you control an agent that has unlimited power?"

"Their power is granted by the Citadel Council," Chakwas answered, "so I'm sure the Council can take it away if given a reason to do so. At which point I assume that Citadel Security Services would take over."

Jenkins made a dismissive noise at this, as he said, "As if. The grunts at C-Sec wouldn't stand a chance against a Spectre—one of them is worth ten ordinary soldiers. A Spectre goes rogue they don't send C-Sec after them, Doctor, they send another Spectre to take them down. That's Spectre justice."

Chakwas shook her head, as she continued to update Rhys's and Finn's medical records. She would have dismissed them already, but she knew from experience that sometimes while she was in the process of updating records she'd find something that she'd want to examine further and then getting the person back in could be a hassle, so she made a point of not dismissing them until she was finished. "You're confusing romantic legends with reality, Corporal."

Before anyone could say anything else, Captain Anderson's voice came over the comm system. "Doctor, if you're finished with Commander Shepard, I need to debrief them in the comm room."

"I'm almost finished, Captain," Chakwas answered. "They'll be with you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, Doctor," Anderson said, before the comm cut off.

-o-0-o-

A few minutes later, following a brief chat with Pressly in the Combat Information Center or CIC, the twins entered the comm room to find no sign of Captain Anderson, although they did find the Spectre, a Turian named Nihlus Kryik.

"I thought Captain Anderson was supposed to be here?" Rhys asked, confused. "He said he needed to debrief us."

Turning towards the twins, Nihlus said, "He had to step out for a moment, but will return shortly. I was hoping you two would arrive first, as this will give us a few minutes to talk."

"What would you like to talk about?" Finn asked. After the conversations with Chakwas, Jenkins and Pressly, Finn was feeling a little wary of Spectres in general and thus wasn't sure how to react around Nihlus.

"I'm interested in this world we're going to," Nihlus said. "Eden Prime. I've heard that it's quite beautiful."

Rhys nodded. "I've heard that too, although Finn and I have never been there personally."

Finn added, "Yes, they say it's a paradise. If you really want to know more about it you should ask Corporal Jenkins, since he was apparently born and raised there."

Ignoring the suggestion about Jenkins, Nihlus said, "Yes, a paradise: serene, tranquil, and safe. Eden Prime has become a symbol for your people hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But just how safe is it really?"

Rhys and Finn shared a look, before Rhys asked, "Do you know something we don't?"

"Your people are still newcomers, Shepard," Nihlus answered. "The galaxy can be a very dangerous place. I'm merely wondering if the Alliance is truly ready for this."

Before Rhys or Finn could comment, there was a slight hiss as the doors to the room opened and Captain Anderson entered the room. "I think it's about time we told the commanders what's really going on."

Nihlus nodded. "This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run."

Rhys and Finn couldn't say they were surprised by that, as Finn nodded and said, "We figured there was something you weren't telling us."

"Yes, most of the crew suspects something else is happening," Rhys added, "although they can only speculate about what."

Anderson nodded. "Yes, I've heard some of the chatter. Anyway, our orders come from the very top of the Alliance brass that information be shared on a strictly need to know basis." Waiting for both Rhys and Finn to nod in understanding, Anderson then continued with, "We're making a covert pickup on Eden Prime, which is why we needed the stealth systems operational."

The twins nodded, as Finn asked, "Who or what are we picking up, sir?"

"A few days ago, excavators on Eden Prime were working on expanding the colony's monorail system," Anderson answered. "A team of researchers was then sent in when they uncovered a beacon of some sort. It was Prothean."

"I thought the Protheans vanished 50,000 years ago," Rhys commented.

"That's true, they did," Nihlus said. "However, their legacy still remains. The mass relays, the Citadel, our ship drives—basically all of our most advanced technologies—it's all based on Prothean technology."

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you how big this is, Shepard," Anderson said. "The last time humanity made a discovery like this it jumped our technology ahead two hundred years. But Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this so we've been sent to get the beacon and bring it back to the Citadel for proper study."

Nihlus nodded. "Obviously a discovery like this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander, as it could affect every species in Council space."

"Why didn't we keep the beacon for ourselves?" Rhys asked. He always did have a slightly more pro-human attitude then Finn did, which had caused a few arguments over the years. Rhys wasn't against aliens, although he tended to be a lot more cautious around them and not be as quick to trust them as Finn generally was.

Nihlus shook his head. "Its comments like that which show why you humans don't have the best reputation. Some species see you as being selfish, as well as being too unpredictable and independent. Some would even say that you're dangerous."

"Sharing that beacon will improve our relations with the Council," Anderson said. "Plus, we need their scientific expertise as they know more about the Protheans than we do, since they've had over a thousand years to study them."

"Of course, the beacon is not the only reason I'm here, Shepard," Nihlus added.

Rhys and Finn both raised an eyebrow at that, but remained silent as Anderson said, "Nihlus wants to see you two in action. He's here to evaluate you."

"Evaluate us?" Rhys asked, as Finn asked, "For what?"

"The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time, Commander," Anderson explained. "Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy and to do that we need more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority, so if they were to accept a human into their ranks, it would show just how far humanity has come."

"Are you suggesting that we're Spectre candidates?" Finn asked, as both he and Rhys got a wide-eyed look on their faces, as neither one of them had ever suspected something like this when they accepted the posting on the Normandy.

Nihlus nodded. "You held off an enemy assault during the Blitz single-handed. You showed not only courage, but also incredible skill. I'll admit, I was a bit leery at first due to your condition, but I also have to admit you do have a very impressive record, which is why I put your names forward as candidates for the Spectres."

"Why would a Turian want a human in the Spectres?" Rhys asked, prompting Finn to sigh and shake his head, because he could recognize his brother's suspicious tone.

"Not all Turians resent humanity, Commander," Nihlus answered. "Some of us—myself included—see great potential in your species and think that you have quite a bit to offer to the rest of the galaxy… and to the Spectres. We are an elite group, Commander, and it's rare to find one individual with the skills that we seek, let alone two at the same time. I honestly don't care that you're human Shepard. I only care that you can do the job."

"I assume this is good for the Alliance?" Finn asked.

"Earth needs this, Shepard," Anderson answered. "We're counting on you."

"I need to see your skills myself," Nihlus said. "Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together. While I've submitted your names to the Council for their consideration, they won't make a final decision until I've made my final report on you and before I can do that I need more than just your records, no matter how impressive they might be."

"We understand and we look forward to working with you," Finn said. Rhys stayed quiet, thankfully, although Finn did catch the slight look on his brother's face that said he wasn't sure he agreed with Finn's statement. To anyone else the look probably wasn't even decipherable, but it was clear enough to Finn, because you couldn't spend every moment with someone for twenty-nine years and not know what pretty much every facial expression meant.

"Good, now that we've covered that," Anderson said, "Shepard, you will be in charge of the ground team. We need you to go down, secure the beacon, and bring it back up to the ship as soon as possible. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

Rhys nodded. "We're ready then," as Finn nodded and added, "Just give the word, Captain."

"We should be getting close to Eden…" Anderson began but was cut off.

" _ **Captain! We've got a problem,"**_ Joker's voice said over the intercom.

"What's wrong Joker?" Anderson asked.

" _ **Transmission from Eden Prime, sir,"**_ Joker answered. _**"You'd better see this."**_

"Bring it up on screen," Anderson said, as he, Nihlus and the twins moved to get a better look at the vidscreen.

After a slight pause, the screen came to life with a large ground battle on the surface of Eden Prime. As they watched a female marine ran towards the camera and say, _**"Get down!"**_ to one of her comrades before she began firing her rifle into the air at some unseen enemy. A moment later, a male's face appeared on screen and said, _**"We are under attack and are taking heavy casualties. I repeat: heavy casualties. We can't… argh! ... –eed evac! They came out of nowhere. We need…"**_ Whatever he was going to say was cut off as an artillery round exploded near his position, sending dirt flying up in every direction and the man himself fell backwards, presumably dead.

Not long after this the screen briefly showed an image of a large ship with what looked like tentacles descending from the sky, followed by a few more explosions, and then nothing as the whole screen was covered with interference for a moment before it went black and Joker said, _**"That's where it cuts out, sir. No comm traffic at all, everything just goes dark."**_

"Reverse and hold at 38.5," Anderson said, as the image of the strange ship came back up on the screen. Shaking his head, Anderson said, "I've never seen anything like that. Nihlus?"

The Turian shook his head, "Neither have I."

"Joker, status report," Anderson said.

" _ **Seventeen minutes out, Captain,"**_ Joker reported. _**"No other Alliance ships in the area, sir."**_

"Take us in, Joker, fast and quiet," Anderson said as he turned his head slightly and looked at Nihlus. "This mission just got a lot more complicated."

-o-0-o-

Over on the Anteros, the engineering team had just finished their final calibrations of the newly installed systems when they picked up the distress call from Eden Prime. Looking over at his first officer, Toran said, "Well, I guess it's time to meet the locals."

"So it would seem," Melissa answered, as Kathryn nodded her head in agreement.

As the Anteros was the larger ship and tactically superior to the Ganymede, the admiral had now transferred over to it. While she was perfectly comfortable on the Intrepid-class, having captained the Voyager for several years, she was an admiral now and before she'd left Earth Spacedock, Admiral Quinn requested that she take up residence on the Anteros after arriving in the Mass Effect Universe and she wasn't one to disobey a request from a superior officer. At least not without very good reason and she couldn't think of one in this case.

Kathryn had assured Toran, however, that she would not try to usurp his authority. The Anteros was still his ship and she had no desire to try and overrule him. While she was in charge of the overall mission in this alternate reality, she saw no reason why she had to actually take command of a starship in order to carry it out. Thus, Captain Bristol-Drake and Captain Ren retained their positions on their respective ships. Obviously the same held true for Captain Dex and Commander Lareth, mainly because they weren't technically under Federation jurisdiction, even if their respective governments had requested that they cooperate with the Federation in this universe.

"Engage the cloak and set course for Eden Prime," Toran said.

"And send a message to the other three ships to cloak and set course for Eden Prime, as well," Kathryn added. "However, ask that they remain cloaked when we arrive, pending further communication from me. We'll likely be meeting the locals soon and I don't want to scare them by having too large of a force appearing all at once."

Toran nodded. "Yes, probably better to prepare them first."

As it would turn out, there was only one ship in the area near Eden Prime when the Anteros and the others arrived. Well, only one ship that had any life signs, that is, as there were a total of eight ships in the area, but only the Normandy SR-1 of the human Systems Alliance had any life signs aboard. The other six ships in orbit of the planet weren't moving to attack the Normandy, but the working hypothesis on that was because they were empty. Another ship could also be detected on the planet surface.

"The ship on the surface is massive, Captain," Kyle said. "And I hate to say this, but from these readings, it matches the configuration that Q gave us for a Reaper."

Toran and Kathryn shared a look at this, as Kathryn asked, "Are you sure, Commander Hawke?"

Kyle nodded. "Yes, Admiral. The design is similar to that of the aquatic species known as a reaper cuttlefish, only this vessel is much larger and as near as I can tell not organic."

Kathryn sighed. "Well, Q did tell me that we might run into what he called the Reaper vanguard, although I'd hoped it wouldn't be this soon." Shaking her head, she said, "Never mind, I think our goal is clear. A distress call has been sent and we must render whatever assistance we can."

"Yes," Toran said. "Logan would it be possible to remain cloaked and contact the Normandy?"

"Yes, Captain," Logan answered. "The Systems Alliance doesn't use subspace, so we'll have to use a more rudimentary method of communication, but we can remain cloaked while talking to them. The longer the conversation goes on, however, the greater the chance of detection."

"Surely they wouldn't be able to detect us," Melissa said.

Shaking his head, Logan said, "I doubt the races of this galaxy yet possess the ability or knowledge to get through Romulan cloaking tech. However, they may be able to detect the Normandy."

Syrran nodded. "Indeed. Scans indicate that they're using an internal heat sinking stealth system. Basically all of their heat emissions are being diverted to heat sinks deep inside their hull. Thanks to our visual sensors and the fact that we rely on more than heat emissions, we can detect them easily, but it appears that the same can't be said for the other ships in the area."

"So can they detect the other ships in the area?"

"I have no way of knowing that for sure without asking them," Kyle answered. "However, my scans indicate that the other ships are not using any form of stealth system so I'd guess that the Normandy can see them. They are, however, keeping their distance from the other six ships due to being greatly outnumbered and outgunned."

"We'll have to be careful how we word our opening hail to the Normandy," Kathryn said. "Make sure they know we're not whoever the enemy attacking the planet is, although I understand the reasoning that I'm assuming is behind your request about remaining cloaked while contacting the Normandy, as I assume you wish to learn more about the situation without the risk of being drawn into an immediate fire fight."

"Indeed those were my thoughts on the issue," Toran agreed. "There's nothing in the database that Q gave us about these ships, so I'm hoping the Normandy can tell us who they are." After a moment, he said, "Lt. Savali, open the appropriate hailing frequencies."

"Aye, sir," Felicity Savali said as she began running through the various signals that Starfleet didn't usually use. It took some time to find the right one, but after a few minutes she said, "Channel open, sir."

"This is Captain Toran Ren of the Federation starship Anteros to the Captain of the Normandy," Toran said. "We are not the force attacking the planet and would like to render whatever assistance that we can, but first we need some more information about the situation. Please respond."

-o-0-o-

Meanwhile, over on the Normandy, they had just returned to a standard orbit around Eden Prime after making two covert drops. The first one to drop off Turian Spectre Nihlus Kryik, who was going to scout ahead and feed information to Commander Shepard's team, consisting of Rhys, Finn, Kaidan Alenko, and Richard Jenkins, who were dropped at the second drop point. When they arrived they found that they weren't alone, but thankfully with the stealth system engaged the enemy hadn't detected them yet. Of course if anyone on the ground had seen the Normandy at the drop points, they all knew the stealth system could be rendered useless if enemy ground forces contacted their ships and told them about the Normandy.

"How many ships?" Anderson asked.

"Six, sir," an ensign said. "According to our records, they're Geth."

"Geth?" Pressly asked, clearly surprised. "They haven't been seen beyond the Perseus Veil in over two hundred years."

"Well, apparently they decided to change that," Joker commented.

Pressly nodded and said, "Can't say I like those odds. We're only a frigate and would have a hard enough time against the lone dreadnaught, but add in the five dropships and it doesn't look good."

"Captain, I'm picking up another ship on the surface of the planet," the ensign said. "It's massive—dreadnaught sized—doesn't match any known configuration."

"Must be the ship from the distress call," Anderson said as he remembered the strange ship that both he and Nihlus had agreed they'd never seen the like of before. On their way to the cargo hold to get geared up for the mission, Rhys and Finn had commented that they'd also never seen anything like it, although Finn had a vague recollection of thinking he'd seen something similar looking—and much smaller—in an aquarium when he was a teenager.

"If any of them detect us," Pressly said, "we are so screwed."

"Indeed," Anderson agreed.

After a few moments, the same ensign who'd informed him of the ship on the planet surface said, "Captain, we're receiving a transmission."

"Impossible!" Pressly said. "Stealth system is engaged. There's no way the Geth could detect us and send a message."

"It's not from the Geth," the ensign said.

"Let's hear it then," Anderson ordered.

" _ **This is Captain Toran Ren of the Federation starship Anteros to the Captain of the Normandy. We are not the force attacking the planet and would like to render whatever assistance that we can, but first we need some more information about the situation. Please respond."**_

David Anderson was quiet for a moment after the message finished playing. He'd never heard of any organization known as the Federation and he was naturally cautious about this unknown entity. On the one hand, he worried that this might be a trap by the Geth to lure him into a false sense of security, but he had his doubts about that, if only because the voice of this Toran Ren didn't sound computer-generated, which suggested it wasn't the Geth. On the other hand, Anderson also realized that he and his crew were greatly outgunned at the moment and he welcomed any and all offers of assistance that he could get.

Finally, with a shake of his head, Anderson said, "This is Captain David Anderson of the Systems Alliance vessel Normandy. I've never heard of this Federation that you speak of, Captain Ren. I must also admit some confusion as to how exactly you detected our ship with our stealth systems engaged."

" _ **I'd be tremendously surprised if you had heard of the Federation,"**_ Toran said. _**"Without going into too much detail over an unsecured channel it technically doesn't exist in this reality. As for how we detected your ship, suffice it to say that we have advanced sensor tech that goes beyond simple thermal readings. In fact I'm looking at the outside of your ship on my main viewscreen as we speak."**_

Anderson shared a look with Pressly at this, but neither man said anything. After a moment, he said, "Okay. I'm not going to pretend to understand what you mean by the Federation doesn't exist in this reality, but such explanations can wait for the time being. Since the Geth aren't moving in to attack, I assume you must be employing some type of stealth system as well?"

" _ **Yes, Captain, we do have a stealth system,"**_ Toran said. _**"And actually, I'm not alone, as I have three companion vessels with me, however as the tactically superior vessel we've been designated the lead ship of our little group. Now you mentioned the Geth. Who are they?"**_

Filing away that piece of information to revisit at a later time, Anderson said, "The Geth are a race of synthetic machines created centuries ago by the Quarians as a cheap menial labor source. Unfortunately, in time they became self-aware, leading the Quarians to panic and attempt to exterminate them. The Geth defended themselves and eventually drove the Quarians off their homeworld of Rannoch, but instead of following the Geth retreated back to Rannoch and the other formerly Quarian worlds, which are beyond the Perseus Veil on the far outer rim of the galaxy on the other side of the galactic core. This is the first time the Geth have been seen beyond the Veil in over 200 years, so I have no idea why they've suddenly decided to attack a human colony."

-o-0-o-

"Hmm, that's interesting," Toran said, as his eyes couldn't help but linger for a moment on Kyle, since as an android he was a completely self-aware synthetic. He was about to ask Kyle if perhaps he could try to contact the Geth ships and speak to them as one synthetic to another to see if they would stand down, but he never got the chance.

"Captain, the Geth ships in orbit are powering up their weapons," Felicity said. "And moving on an intercept course. It doesn't appear they've detected us, but I think they've picked up on the Normandy's transmissions and are moving to intercept."

"Well, diplomacy appears to be out of the question then," Toran said. "Red Alert! Target the lead Geth ship and prepare to drop the cloak on my order."

"Aye, aye, sir," Felicity said.

"Drop the cloak and fire."

Seconds after the Anteros had decloaked, the forward phaser array fired at the lead Geth ship, prompting Felicity to say, "Sir, their barriers are offline, but they don't seem to care. No attempt at communication and now all the ships are turning to fire on us."

"Tactical analysis?" Toran asked.

Scanning the ship, Kyle said, "The lead ship has ten railguns mounted on the bottom of the hull, five on each side, with what appears to be only a twenty-degree firing angle. There's also four mass accelerator cannons, three forward and one aft, which appear to be their version of a torpedo launcher. Finally there's two dozen ultraviolet anti-fighter lasers."

At this the first shot from the Geth hit the Anteros's shields, prompting Felicity to say, "Barely a scratch, sir. Shields are holding at 99.4%."

"Target their kinetic barriers only," Toran said. "If that doesn't dissuade them then target their weapons. I'd prefer not to kill them, so avoid hitting any critical systems if you can." Felicity nodded and began choosing the targets as ordered. Looking over at Kyle, Toran asked, "Can you contact them?"

"I've been trying, sir, but no response," Kyle answered. "It doesn't appear they're interested in talking."

A few minutes later, as the Anteros was hit again, this time by all six Geth ships in a concentrated pattern, Felicity said, "Shields down to 90%. Still no attempts from the Geth to communicate."

"Sir, three of the ships have broken off their assault on us and are heading towards the Normandy," Syrran announced a second later.

Toran sighed. "Well, I guess they don't leave us much choice. Target the ships heading for the Normandy: full spread of photon torpedoes."

"Aye, sir," Felicity said, as she worked in concert with Nevin to maneuver the Anteros into position so that the forward launchers were facing the right way. Once they were in position, Felicity fired and everyone on the bridge watched as the glowing orange torpedoes flew through the blackness of space at the Geth ships. Moments later, there were three massive explosions as all three ships exploded.

"Looks like Valdren was right about his one-shot kill hypothesis," Toran commented, as several other people on the bridge nodded in agreement.

"Sir, the remaining Geth ships are breaking off," Felicity said. "They're retreating."

"Yes, but the Reaper vessel is ascending from the surface of the planet," Syrran revealed.

"Signal the Normandy," Toran said, knowing that they had fired on a couple of the Geth ships during the recent fighting. "Tell them to back off and leave this new contact to us."

"They've acknowledged the signal and are moving away," Felicity said, a few moments later, as the top of the Reaper vessel came up through the atmosphere of Eden Prime.

"Tactical analysis?" Toran asked.

"The Reaper vessel is over 900 kilometers longer than us, sir," Kyle answered. "And its kinetic barriers are about a hundred times stronger than the ones on the Geth ships."

"Its main gun is a spinal mounted cannon that the computer calculates can fire with the power of up to 450 kilotons of TNT. There's a further cannon at the end of each of its five tendril like appendages which the computer calculates to be roughly half as powerful as the main cannon."

"Good call telling the Normandy to move away, Captain Ren," Kathryn said. "This vessel would have crushed them like a bug."

Toran nodded. "Thank you, Admiral. Considering what we know about the Reapers and their methods I figured that would be the case."

"They're charging weapons, sir," Kyle said, as a red glow appeared at the tip of one of the new ship's tendrils. "It looks like they're targeting the Normandy."

"Helm, move us between the Normandy and the enemy," Toren said.

"Aye, aye, sir," Nevin acknowledged, as the ship moved between the Normandy and the massive enemy ship, and took the full brunt of its weapon a moment later.

"Shields at 80%, sir," Felicity said.

"Return fire," Toren said.

A few moments later, Kyle said, "Sir, at first glance it looks like they're using energy weapons like we are, but my scans indicate that it's actually firing highly concentrated streams of molten metal at a fraction of the speed of light."

"Hmm, well that's different," Toren said, as he'd never encountered anyone who used that type of weaponry before.

"I suggest deploying the armor," Kathryn said.

Toran nodded. "Yes, deploy armor."

Felicity nodded as she pushed the new button on her console that activated the ablative armor generators, causing the ship to be encased in a thick layer of additional armor plating. Not long after this, the Ganymede decloaked about twenty kilometers starboard of the Anteros, their weapons charged, as they joined in firing at the Reaper. Seconds later, the shimmer of a cloak dropping could be seen as the Var'mang and the Incepteris materialized about fifty kilometers behind the Reaper and began firing their cannons.

Cassandra, who was leaning against a nearby railing since Admiral Janeway was seated in the chair she normally sat in while on the bridge, suddenly grabbed her head and winced. Noticing the movement, Toran asked, "Commander Elbrey are you okay?"

"I'm picking up the Reaper's consciousness," Cassandra answered. "It's not as strong as Q's, but it's definitely stronger than anything I've previously felt from anyone other than Q himself."

"Can you sense anything from it?"

"Yes, Captain," Cassandra replied. "Malice and hatred. Extreme hatred."

The ship was rocked at this point, as one of the Reaper's weapons hit it. Felicity said, "Shields at 65%. Armor is holding at 95%."

Cassandra winced again, prompting Toran to say, "Close your mind, Cassandra. I can tell from your expression that it's causing you pain."

"Easier said than done," Cassandra replied.

As the four ships continued firing on the Reaper the battle began to turn in favor against it, made very clear when one the Ganymede's phaser beams cut through one of the Reaper's tendrils, severing it from the rest of its hull. Not long after this, everyone on the bridges of the Anteros, Ganymede, Incepteris and Var'mang winced in pain as a high-pitched sound that many of the humans compared to nails on a chalkboard sounded inside their own skulls, along with the words, _**"We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."**_

"Not today," Toran said. "Lt. Savali, full spread of quantum torpedoes."

"Aye, aye, sir," Felicity said, as she fired. Seconds later, the Ganymede also fired off its own quantums, as the Var'mang and Incepteris, which both only had aft torpedo launchers, sent their own volleys of photon torpedoes and Romulan plasma torpedoes at the Reaper.

As the torpedo volleys impacted with the massive ship, Kyle said, "I'm detecting a large amount of damage to its hull, sir, and its kinetic barriers have completely collapsed."

"Continue firing phasers," Toran said and Felicity did just that, as moments later one of the Anteros's phaser beams cut through two of the ship's tendrils—completely severing them from the rest of the ship.

" _ **You will not win,"**_ the Reaper said again. _**"We are only the vanguard of your salvation through destruction. You cannot stop us. Nobody can stop us."**_

It was at this point that the ship stopped firing and engaging what was clearly an FTL-drive, moved away at high speed. Toran said, "Can we trace where it's going?"

Kyle shook his head. "Negative, sir. Since it doesn't use a warp-drive, there is no warp trail to trace. And we don't have enough experience with this universe's FTL-drives to even begin to find a way to track them."

"Incoming transmission from the Normandy, sir," Felicity said. "They report that they have teams on the ground that have run into heavy Geth resistance and are requesting assistance."

"Helm, take us closer to the planet," Toran said. "Kyle, when we're in range, scan the planet and see if you can find the locations of the Normandy's teams. Felicity, tell the Normandy we're moving in to assist their teams."

All three officers acknowledged the orders, as the other three ships moved closer to the planet as well, obviously planning on sending their own reinforcements planet side.

-o-0-o-

Several minutes later on the surface of Eden Prime, several streams of shimmering blue, red, and green light appeared as the away teams sent by the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships beamed down. The Anteros's team consisted of Melissa Flores, Kyle Hawke-Derikson, Logan Parker, Syrran Parker, and Kira Nevin, while the Ganymede's team consisted of Bryan Drake, Lucas Parker, Serron Parker, Barin Troi, and Lt. Commander Karrina Jarok, the Ganymede's Romulan Second Officer and Chief of Operations.

Since the Klingons didn't believe in the Federation policy of forbidding the Captain from going on away missions, nobody was really surprised to see that Joran Dex was leading his team, which consisted of K'Gan, T'Proth, Hosu, and the Var'mang's Gorn Chief Medical Officer, Commander Thraak. The Romulan team was also led by Valdren Lareth, who had brought Tovan Khev, T'varen Mendak, Vanetra Arrai, and his Second Officer and Chief of Operations Subcommander Koal Lareth, who was also his younger brother.

"There's a small spaceport ahead," Karrina said as she looked at her tricorder readings. "I am also detecting a few human life signs in the vicinity and two unidentified life signs."

"Well, I guess that's our next stop then," Bryan said. "Shall we go?"

The leaders of the other three away teams agreed and they all headed off in that direction. It was as they got closer to the spaceport that they overheard a conversation.

"Saren?" a male voice asked. None of the away team members could see the person's face but from what they could see of the back of the person's head, they were clearly not human.

Another humanoid creature, who appeared to be of the same race turned and said, "Nihlus."

"What are you doing here, Saren? This isn't your mission," Nihlus said.

The other man, Saren, came closer to Nihlus and patted him on the shoulder, as he said, "The Council thought you could use some help on this one."

"I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here," Nihlus said. He was clearly at ease with Saren, suggesting that they knew each other.

"Don't worry," Saren—who was now standing behind Nihlus—said as he raised a pistol to the back of Nihlus's head and said, "I've got it under control."

"Nihlus, behind you!" Bryan shouted, prompting Nihlus to spin around, clearly in shock when he realized that Saren was about to shoot him.

"Spirits, Saren, what the hell? You were seriously about to shoot me in the back of the head? Why?!"

Saren didn't answer, however, as he spied the approaching away teams and realizing that he was now greatly outnumbered, he said, "I don't have time for this," and took off running towards the monorail that led to the spaceport's other platform, throwing a grenade behind him which exploded near a few crates, the force of which knocked Nihlus off his feet and prevented any of the away team members from chasing after Saren.

Moving over to Nihlus, Bryan held out his hand to him to help him up. After a moment of hesitation, Nihlus accepted it and looking around at the large group of people, several of whom were alien races he'd never encountered before, he asked, "Who are you?"

"Commander Bryan Drake, First Officer of the Federation starship Ganymede," Bryan said, as he proceeded to introduce the rest of his team. Melissa, Joran, and Valdren followed suit, introducing both themselves and their teams.

Nihlus looked a bit overwhelmed by all the names and positions he'd just heard in a relatively short span of time, so turning back to Bryan, who was clearly the person who had warned him about what Saren was about to do, as he recognized the voice, he asked, "Aren't you way too young to be the First Officer of a starship?"

Bryan smiled. "I get that often, but then I am only sixteen. It's not common for people my age to rise to the level of First Officer so young, but I started at Starfleet Academy much younger than most. And until recently, the Federation was at war with the Klingon Empire for five years, which caused something of a vacuum in the officer ranks, as many young, junior officers found themselves moving up the ranks a lot quicker than they normally would due to the deaths of older and more experienced officers who then obviously needed to be replaced."

Turning to Joran, he asked, "Wait, didn't you say you were with the Klingon Empire?"

Joran nodded. "I did, yes. Our war with the Federation ended with an armistice a week ago. Normally, I probably wouldn't be teaming up with them this soon, but I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. And Commander Flores's captain is my twin brother, so, that did help smooth things over between us."

Before anyone else could say anything, Nevin called out, "There's a hurt man over here. It looks like he got caught in that grenade explosion."

Joran motioned his head in Nevin's direction, wordlessly telling Commander Thraak to lend a hand. Thraak nodded and moved over to the prone human, who was badly burned. A few moments later, Thraak hissed, "I've stabilized him for the moment, but he will need medical attention soon or he will die."

"Since he's human, I suggest he be beamed up to the Anteros or the Ganymede," Valdren said.

Melissa nodded and tapping her commbadge, she said, "Flores to Anteros. Lock on to the human life sign next to Lieutenant Kira and beam him directly to Sickbay."

Moments later, the injured human disappeared in a shimmering blue light that had Nihlus looking shocked as he asked, "What the hell just happened to him?"

"He was transported up to the Anteros," Koal answered. "We have what's called transporter technology. It basically breaks objects or people down to subatomic particles known as a matter stream. This matter stream is then reassembled at the destination, nearly instantaneously."

"There are limitations, of course," Vanetra added. "As they're limited to transporting objects or people from one ship to another within a limited range or to and from the planet surface to an orbiting ship. Transport between planets or larger distances isn't possible."

Before Nihlus could say anything, Anderson contacted him from the Normandy about their new friends who'd agreed to send people to the surface to help with the survivors. With a nod of his head, Nihlus said, "Yes, Anderson, I've already met them and some of them aren't human. In fact, some of them are races I've never even heard of."

" _ **Interesting,"**_ Anderson said.

"If you think that's interesting," Nihlus said, "they also seem to have some pretty advanced technology. Such as what they call a transporter which is some kind of instant transportation device that allows them to get to and from their ship in a column of light."

" _ **Well, that answers that question,"**_ Anderson commented. _**"They'd said they were going to send down teams, but then I didn't see any of their ships move into the atmosphere or launch shuttles, so I was rather confused about how they were sending the teams down. Of course, some of their ships are probably too large to land on a planet as the Normandy can."**_

"The Ganymede is capable of planetary landing," Bryan said, as Melissa nodded and added, "The Anteros, however, isn't."

Joran and Valdren revealed that neither of their ships were capable of planetary landing either, before Nihlus said, "Anderson, you should know that there's another Spectre down here."

" _ **Another Spectre?"**_ Anderson asked. _**"The Council didn't say anything about sending another Spectre here did they? Who is it? Do you know them?"**_

"No, they didn't," Nihlus answered. "And I most certainly do know them, considering that it's my old mentor without whom I wouldn't have been recruited for the Spectres. It's Saren Arterius. He's not the Saren I know, however, as it seems like he was planning to shoot me in the back of the head, but our new friends showed up at the right time and stopped him."

" _ **Have you found the beacon?"**_ Anderson asked, his tone taking on a definite edge which hadn't been present mere moments ago.

"Negative," Nihlus said. "It wasn't at the dig site, but I don't know where it might be."

At this, Joran's communicator beeped and he said, "Dex here, what is it?"

" _ **Captain, we've stopped a group of four armed and armored humans,"**_ T'Proth said over the comm, who along with the other security officers among the four teams had established a perimeter while the others talked to Nihlus. _**"They say they're from the Normandy."**_

"Let them through," Joran ordered.

Moments later, the group arrived and from the look of them, it was three men and a woman. Several eyebrows among the Federation, Romulan, and Klingon teams went up upon seeing that two of the men were connected with only three legs between them. Recognizing them, Nihlus said, "Ah, Commander Shepard, good to see you. As you can see, we've made some new friends."

"Indeed," Rhys said, his tone somewhat weary.

"I'd try to sound a bit more grateful if I were you," Koal said. "If it wasn't for us, it's entirely possible that the Normandy would be a debris field right now. Not to mention the fact that Nihlus here would be dead."

"I apologize for my brother," Finn said. "He's always been rather slow to trust aliens. Especially new aliens. You're not human are you?"

Koal shook his head. "No, I'm Romulan."

Nihlus was about to say something, when Rhys suddenly asked, "What the hell?"

Finn turned to his brother at this, and asked, "What now, Rhys?"

Raising the hand that wasn't on his assault rifle, Rhys pointed at Logan and Lucas Parker and said, "Look at them, Finn."

Turning to look where Rhys was pointing Finn said, "Bloody hell."

Logan and Lucas looked at each other for a moment, confused, before Logan asked, "Is there a problem?"

Putting away their weapons, Rhys and Finn both reached up and removed their helmets, as Finn said, "You could say that, yes."

There were several gasps as everyone looked at Rhys and Finn and then at Logan and Lucas, who all looked nearly identical to each other. Shaking his head, Rhys said, "It's like I'm looking in a mirror, except that the reflection is different from normal, since you two aren't conjoined like Finn and I are."

"Well, this is certainly an unexpected turn of events," Syrran said, as he looked between his husband and brother-in-law and the pair of conjoined brothers who shared their face.

"Indeed it is, but we've got more pressing issues to deal with," Nihlus said. "Commander Shepard, have you uncovered any information on the beacon?"

Rhys nodded. "We found and talked to a Dr. Warren, the lead researcher," before Finn added, "According to her, the beacon was moved to the spaceport this morning."

"Hmm," Nihlus said. "Well, it isn't here, which means it must be on the other platform, which is where Saren was headed. Damn it. Seeing as how he nearly shot me, something tells me we need to keep him away from that beacon."

"I'm guessing this beacon is important?" Bryan asked at the same time that Valdren asked, "What exactly is this beacon you people keep talking about?"

"That's classified," Nihlus answered.

"Nihlus, with all due respect," Finn said, "they've already helped us and if they're going to help us get to the beacon, which will no doubt mean fighting through more Geth, I think they have a right to know what they're risking their lives for."

Nihlus was silent for a moment, before he nodded and said, "Fair enough. The beacon is a piece of ancient Prothean technology. The Protheans ruled the galaxy 50,000 years ago until they suddenly disappeared although nobody ever figured out how or why. All of our technology from ship drives to weapons are based on Prothean technology, which was obtained from similar beacons over the years."

"So the beacon may contain additional technology that will help your people," Bryan summarized, prompting nods from the natives. In his head, Bryan couldn't help but think back to his childhood when he'd gone through a phase of being extremely interested in ancient Earth, especially 20th century movies and books, including _Star Wars_. He remembered thinking at the time just how ridiculous it was that some of the books in the so-called Extended Universe were set more than a thousand years before the movies and yet both the movies and the books used all of the same technology, with no apparent improvement over the course of a millennium.

The people of this universe, however, seemed to be even worse if they were basing all of their technology on stuff that had been invented over 50,000 years ago. Bryan had to admit that some of it, like the mass relay network, was quite impressive, but he found it almost impossible to believe that an entire universe would focus solely on reverse-engineering ancient technology and not develop any new technology of their own. Then again, with what he knew of the Reapers, perhaps it wasn't such an impossible thing to believe, as they clearly did everything they could to make sure that the races of this galaxy always fell into their trap of using the technology that could be turned against them at a moment's notice.

Obviously he didn't say this aloud, however, keeping his thoughts entirely to himself, as Nihlus nodded, "Indeed. I'd also like to find out why the person who trained me as a Spectre was about to kill me."

"And I'd very much like to find out why my entire squad is dead," Ashley added.

Finn must have noticed the confused looks on some of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan officers' faces, as he said, "Ashley is one of the marines who was stationed here on the planet. She was the only one of her squad left when Rhys, Kaidan, and I came upon her." And realizing that they'd never introduced themselves, he added, "I'm Lt. Commander Finn Shepard, the Co-XO of the Normandy, along with my brother, Lt. Commander Rhys Shepard." Pointing at Kaidan and Ashley, he added, "This is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Marine Ashley Williams."

Nihlus's mandibles clacked slightly, as he asked, "Where's Jenkins?"

"He didn't make it," Rhys answered. "Some of those flying Geth drones ripped right through his shields and killed him."

"Ah, I see," Nihlus said. "You have my condolences. Now, let's get moving."

"Since there's so many of us," Finn said, "might I suggest that a few should perhaps double back the way we came and get Dr. Warren and her assistant to safety? There seemed to be something wrong with Manuel, although I couldn't put my finger on it."

"Dr. Warren said it herself, Finn," Rhys said. "Genius often leads to madness."

Shaking his head, Finn said, "I get the feeling it was more than simple madness."

"My team and I can see to Dr. Warren and her assistant," Bryan volunteered. "Where are they?"

"Ashley can you show them?" Rhys asked. "You can catch up to us when the civilians are safe."

Ashley nodded, as she led Bryan and his team away, along with Valdren and his team, who decided to accompany them. This left the teams from the Anteros and the Var'mang to assist the Normandy crew. "My team and I are at your disposal," Melissa said, as Joran nodded.

"Are you sure it's safe for you to be going into a combat situation?" Kaidan asked. "You're not exactly dressed for it."

"Don't let our lack of body armor fool you," Serron said, as he brandished the phase rifle in his hands. "We can defend ourselves."

"If you say so," Rhys said, as he and Finn put their helmets back on and got their weapons back out.

-o-0-o-

To be continued.

And there's Chapter Three of The Q Effect. So, Spectre Nihlus Kryik is still alive. There may be others that I save who unavoidably died in the trilogy, although some will still have to die, because it is a war and it wouldn't be realistic to say that everyone survives. So, any thoughts on how the search for the beacon will differ now that Nihlus and the teams from the Anteros and Var'mang will be with Commander Shepard's team when it's found? Will it still be destroyed? Stay tuned to the next chapter to find out.


	4. Chapter 4

The Q Effect  
Written by J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relate to Star Trek are the property of CBS Studios, Inc. and/or Paramount Pictures, while all featured characters and places that that related to the game Star Trek Online are the property of Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and finally all featured characters and places that relate to Mass Effect are the property of Bioware/EA. I'm not profiting on this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the shows, games, books, or other media.

Main Pairings: Rhys Shepard/Kaidan Alenko, Finn Shepard/Toran Ren

Secondary Pairings: Kyle Hawke-Derikson/Nathan Derikson, Logan Parker/Syrran Parker, Lucas Parker/Serron Parker, William Bristol-Drake/Bryan Drake, and the possibility of others in the future.

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Slash, Language, Violence, M/M Sex, Threesome, Foursome, Original Characters (others may get added as the story progresses)

Crossover: Mass Effect/Star Trek Online

Summary: Two vastly different universes collide when Q decides to send a pair of Federation vessels, along with a Klingon ship and a Romulan ship, into another reality, on a mission that could very well determine the fate of both universes.

-o-0-o-

Chapter Four

-o-0-o-

"Well, this is your mission, so we'll follow your lead," Melissa said to Finn, Rhys, and Nihlus. Joran nodded his head, indicating that he was fine with that.

"Okay then," Rhys said, still more than a bit leery about taking the Starfleet officers into a combat situation. The Klingon crew were at least wearing armor, although it was nothing like anything that Rhys had ever seen in his life.

'They also have some pretty strange looking weaponry,' Rhys thought as he looked at the Federation phaser rifles and Klingon disruptors. Of course, the Klingons also all had knives attached to their belts and were all wearing a large, strange-looking blade on their backs that Rhys had no idea what to call.

Noticing Rhys's gaze, Joran said, "It's called a bat'leth. Klingons prefer hand-to-hand combat whenever possible, but we've got the disruptors for ranged combat."

Rhys nodded as the group began moving. Finn, meanwhile, asked, "So are you Klingon? I've never met one before, so…"

Shaking his head, Joran said, "No, I'm not Klingon. I'm a Trill. K'Gan and T'Proth are Klingon. Hosu is Orion and Thraak is Gorn."

"So, how'd you find yourselves on Eden Prime?" Kaidan asked. "I assume you came through one of the relays. Obviously one that the Council hasn't explored yet, since we've never met Klingons, Trills, Orions, or Gorn before."

Nihlus added, "I would point out, however, that Commander Flores and her team are human and yet they're clearly not from Earth, seeing as how we've never heard of this United Federation of Planets before. Or what was it you called it? Starfleet?"

Melissa nodded, deciding to ignore the statement about the relay for now, as that would probably take too long to explain and now didn't seem like the right time for such explanations. "Yes, Starfleet is the military arm of the Federation. And in truth, only Logan and I are human."

"I'm Bajoran," Nevin said. "My race looks very human like, except for the ridges on the bridge of our noses."

Syrran nodded. "The pointed ears are the external indicator that sets my race, Vulcan, apart from humanity. Internally there's several other differences, including organ placement and the fact that our blood is green instead of red."

Kaidan nodded, as he looked over at Kyle. "And what are you then? Unlike the others I can't see any indication of you being anything other than human."

"I'm an android," Kyle answered in a rather matter-of-fact tone.

"Android?" Rhys asked. "Do you mean you're an AI?"

"If by AI you mean Artificial Intelligence," Kyle said, "then yes, I guess you could call me that, although I would prefer you didn't. My late father created me to be as human-like as possible and that is what I aspire to be."

"You're clearly not from around here," Nihlus said. "Since AIs are technically illegal within Council space."

"Why?" Logan asked.

"Because organics and synthetics can't co-exist," Nihlus said. "The Geth are a perfect example. They started a war and drove their creators into exile."

"I would argue that you're wrong on that front," Kyle said. "Organics and synthetics can co-exist quite well, as I interact with the rest of the crew of the Anteros without any issues. Not to mention the fact that I'm married to Dr. Nathan Derikson, the Anteros's human Chief Medical Officer."

"You're married to a human male?" Nihlus asked.

"Yes, I am," Kyle answered. "I've been with Nathan for most of my life. I was activated fifteen years ago and have been with Nathan for eleven of those years. We've been married for nine of them. It'll be ten in December of this year."

' _Well, ten years this December according to our calendar,'_ Syrran thought. _'But now isn't the right time to get into the fact that it's 2410 where we're from, rather than 2183 as it is here.'_

Silence followed this admission for a few minutes before Finn said, "Well, I'm not sure I can understand the idea of a human and a… android… being a couple."

"I can't say that I understand the two men part," Nihlus said.

"That's not an issue for Finn and me," Rhys said. "We're both gay, after all."

Kaidan seemed to be surprised by that statement, but said nothing. Nihlus, meanwhile, was silent for a moment, before he said, "Well, I can't understand why any man would want to be with another man, but I suppose what you two do in the privacy of your bedroom is no concern of mine."

"Heads up!" Joran said. "Geth dead ahead."

"Oh shit that's a bloody Prime," Rhys said, as he saw the larger than normal Geth. "Take cover."

Everyone quickly did as Rhys said, as the Geth Prime began firing at them. Joran didn't like that at all, nor did the rest of his crew, so they all fired their disruptors. The green beams from five disruptors quickly knocked out the Prime's shields and then disintegrated it. Needless to say, the eyes of Rhys, Finn, Kaidan, and Nihlus were all about as wide as they could possibly be as they'd never expected to see anyone take out a Geth Prime so quickly.

"What the bloody hell?" Rhys asked. "Your weapons… I've never seen anything like them."

"What was that they fired?" Nihlus asked. "Certainly not bullets."

' _They're definitely very far behind technologically,'_ Logan thought, as he remembered his surprise when he first scanned their weaponry and realized that it wasn't energy-based, but rather ballistic-based. Then again, considering their ship weapons, it probably shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. Still to just about anyone from the 25th century, weapons that fired bullets were something that they usually only saw in museums.

Before anyone could say anything, Melissa said, "Was that really necessary? You should have used the stun setting."

Joran looked over at Melissa at that and said, "Actually that was the stun setting." His four officers nodded to indicate that their weapons were all set to stun as well. "It's not my fault that the Geth can't handle a disruptor blast."

"I'd say it's logical to assume that five blasts at once was too much for that Prime to handle," Syrran said. "Whether the same would hold true for a single blast, I couldn't say."

"Indeed," Logan said. "Of course, they're probably geared towards protecting themselves from ballistic attacks, rather than directed energy attacks."

"If they're anything at all like the Borg, they'll adapt," Nevin added.

"What are the Borg?" Finn asked.

"Something you never want to meet," Melissa said. "Although, technically you already have."

"When?" Finn asked.

"Commander Lareth and Centurion Arrai are both Liberated Borg drones," Joran said, as he fired at an incoming Geth. This time, only hit by one beam, its kinetic barriers dropped and a second blast had it falling to the ground, sparking, but not disintegrating. "That's why they have those mechanical implants. In a nutshell, the Borg are a race of organic-synthetic hybrids who forcefully assimilate organics into their collective hive mind. Both Valdren and Vanetra were rescued from the Borg and had most of their implants removed."

"All that could be removed, anyway," Thraak added. "Without killing them."

Due to the stream of Geth that were trying to prevent them from moving any further towards the tram that would take them to the other platform, nothing else was said for several minutes. More than once Melissa was sorely tempted to contact the Anteros and ask them to beam everyone across to the other platform, but she held her tongue. At least partly because she doubted that Joran's crew would approve of such a course of action as they'd probably view that as an act of cowardice not worthy of a Klingon and she didn't need a fight with them on top of the one with the Geth. Of course, she also wasn't sure how Rhys, Finn, Kaidan, or Nihlus would react to being teleported.

As the battle continued, it wasn't just Commander Shepard's team that were surprised, as they had been by the energy weaponry employed by their new allies. Both Melissa's and Joran's teams were surprised by the abilities they were witnessing being employed by Kaidan, Rhys, and Finn which they described as biotic abilities. From what they were able to explain during the fighting, biotics were the ability of rare individuals to control mass effect fields to harness and control dark energy to create numerous effects.

As far as they knew, only the Asari were naturally gifted with biotics, whereas all the other races had to be exposed in utero to dust-form element zero to be able to develop biotic abilities. And even then such exposure wasn't a guarantee, as usually only one in ten such exposed people developed abilities that were strong enough to warrant further training with the rest either being too weak to do anything significant, having no abilities, or developing lethal brain tumors. Several people on both Melissa's and Joran's team couldn't help but wonder if some of the species from their home universe that didn't exist in the Mass Effect Universe might not also be naturally gifted with the abilities as the Asari were, but had either never realized it or were currently unknown to the Federation or Klingon Empire.

Eventually, the group managed to fight their way through the incoming Geth and reach the tram that would take them to the other platform, giving all of them some much needed breathing time to relax from the battle they'd just finished which was very intense, as the Geth had seemed relentless in their desire to keep them away from the other platform. One other thing that had become clear during the fighting was that both the Klingons and the Federation, and thus presumably the Romulans, would need to look into obtaining armor like that Commander Shepard and his team were using, because their shields couldn't block everything, especially large amounts of gunfire during a pitched battle.

This was made abundantly clear after Nevin's shields failed while he was firing at a Geth and he ended up getting shot. Between Commander Thraak's skills and the use of what Finn had called medi-gel, Nevin was stabilized enough on the ground that he was in no danger and was then transported up to the Anteros for treatment with Felicity Savali beaming down to take his place. It was perhaps strange that she, as Chief of Security, hadn't accompanied the away team originally, but she'd initially been busy with Toran and Kathryn and a few members of the Anteros's crew going over the sensor readings from the battle with the Reaper.

"That medi-gel certainly seemed useful," Syrran commented, as they rode the tram across to the other platform.

Finn nodded. "Yes, it's very useful. Has saved both Rhys's and my lives, and those of countless other soldiers and civilians alike," as he went on to explain that it was basically a genetically engineered medicinal salve that acted as both an anesthetic and clotting agent. It promoted healing in various wounds and ailments and also prevented infection by sealing tightly against liquid, notably blood, and other possible contaminants.

"Technically, the compound is illegal under the Citadel's laws concerning genetic engineering," Rhys revealed, before he grinned and added, "Although it's proven so useful to the galactic community that the enforcement officials all look the other way."

When they reached the other platform they found that Saren had left a very unwelcome surprise waiting for them, in the form of several explosive charges set which would produce explosions large enough to not only destroy the spaceport itself, but also the entire colony.

"Shit," Finn said. "We have to disarm these before dealing with Saren and the beacon."

Kaidan nodded. "Yes, if we don't the entire colony will be leveled."

"We need to get to the beacon and stop Saren," Nihlus said, before he sighed and said, "Although I agree that these charges do need to be disarmed."

"How about you four go on ahead and deal with Saren?" Melissa asked. "Meanwhile, Joran's and my teams will handle the explosives."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Rhys said, as the others agreed.

Thus as Rhys, Finn, Kaidan, and Nihlus headed towards the beacon's location, Melissa and Joran each had their respective ships beam down an additional security officer, allowing them to split their teams into two teams of three. There were four explosive charges in all and it was determined they had only five minutes to deactivate them all. Thankfully, Kyle, Logan, K'Gan and T'Proth had training with explosives and these charges were rather rudimentary in comparison to what they were used to back home and thus disarming them didn't prove all that challenging. So both Melissa's and Joran's teams split up into teams of three and headed for the charges, with one person assigned to disarming, while the other two provided cover fire against the Geth that were patrolling the area.

Not long after Kyle had finished disarming the second of the charges he was responsible for, Rhys's loud exclamation of, "FUCK!" could be heard from nearby, followed by four loud thuds, one of them being louder than the order three. Kyle, Melissa, and Felicity were careful to stay in cover as they moved closer to the source of the sound and looking around the edge of a crate, Kyle saw Saren standing in front of what he assumed was the Prothean beacon. After a moment, Saren was lifted into the air as the beacon began glowing. However, Shepard and the others couldn't do anything to stop Saren as the reason for Rhys's exclamation was because there were now four large Geth weapon platforms between them and Saren, one of them being significantly larger than the other three.

As the Anteros's and Var'mang's teams regrouped, they quickly made their way down to Shepard and the others, where they learned that the three smaller platforms were called Geth Armatures, while the larger one was called a Colossus. There was no way that any of them could slip past them in order to get to Saren if they wanted to live, so the Armatures and Colossus had to be taken out first, although that proved easier said than done, since they all had much more powerful weapons and shielding than the other Geth they'd faced up until now. Plus, there were a large number of Geth Rocket Troopers accompanying them.

Being careful to remain in cover, Rhys deployed his Tech Armor, which covered both him and Finn, and then used his omni-tool combined with his hacking skills to hack a few of the rocket troopers, successfully getting them to fire on one of the armatures, which provided a good distraction. Meanwhile, Finn deployed his combat drone, put up a biotic barrier, and began overloading the rocket troopers that Rhys didn't hack. Joran's team, meanwhile were also firing on one of the armatures with their disruptors, although they quickly realized that the Colossus's machine guns were forcing them to all stay in cover for longer periods than they'd like.

"We might be able to lock onto the armatures and beam them into space," Felicity suggested.

Kyle didn't look like he liked that option, as he pointed out, "Hostile or not, they are sentient, so beaming them into space would be tantamount to murder."

"What about beaming away the beacon?" Melissa asked. "If we could beam it away we could stop Saren from using it."

Shaking his head, Logan said, "That's not going to work." At Melissa's questioning look, he added, "Ever since Saren started using the beacon, I've detected a marked increase in thoron radiation which would make it very hard to get a transport lock on the beacon or anything near it. Pattern enhancers might allow as to get a lock, but unfortunately we didn't bring any with us and due to the radiation, we can't beam any down."

Syrran looked rather grim, as he added, "Not to mention the fact that in either case, we'd still have to deploy them around the beacon in order to use them which would mean getting past the armatures and the colossus. And it would be illogical to assume that they will allow that while they're still functioning."

Everyone from the Anteros was quiet for a moment, as they each came out of cover one by one to fire their phaser rifles at one of the armatures. Once they'd each taken a turn, Felicity asked, "What about hitting them with the shipboard phasers? They're much stronger than anything we've got here on the ground and that would probably take them out a lot quicker."

"You're probably right about that," Logan said. "However, thoron radiation doesn't just interfere with transporters. It also interferes with sensors which includes the targeting sensors."

"What if we did a manual target lock?" Melissa asked.

"From orbit?" Logan asked. "Not advisable. Too great a chance that it'll hit an unintended target, like the beacon or us."

"Well the Ganymede is small enough that it can enter the atmosphere," Felicity said, as she looked at Syrran and asked, "If he has a visual of what he's firing at do you think Serron can make the shot manually?"

Syrran was quiet for a moment, before he nodded and said, "Yes, Serron could probably do it."

"How confident are you in that assessment?" Kyle asked.

"Confident enough that I say we should try it," Syrran said. "We're not making much headway as we're going, so pulling out the big guns is probably the only way we're going to finish this."

Melissa was silent for a moment, before she tapped her commbadge and said, "Flores to Admiral Janeway."

"Janeway here, what is it Commander?"

"We're pinned down by four large and powerful Geth," Melissa said, before explaining about the thoron radiation being generated by the beacon. "I think we're going to need the big guns."

-o-0-o-

With a plan in place, Melissa and the team from the Anteros quickly got the others to move back several meters, with Kaidan, Rhys, and Finn using their biotics to knock over several large storage containers to block the path to the beacon, since while the armatures were content to stand in one spot once it's targets left their sight, the Colossus wasn't and would attempt to seek them out.

"So what's this plan of yours?" Finn asked.

Melissa just smiled. "You'll see. Watch the sky."

It took a few minutes, but then the Ganymede entered the atmosphere, causing more than a little surprise from Kaidan, Rhys, Finn, and Nihlus, as they got their first look at a Starfleet vessel. Joran and his team laughed as Joran said, "Using the big guns, huh? While it would have been glorious to defeat those things on foot, I've realized that wasn't likely to happen."

"Indeed," Melissa said, as the Ganymede's forward phaser array began glowing orange, before a beam shot downwards at the Colossus, which didn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell against a MK XIV shipboard phaser. Three more shots were seen shortly after, as the Ganymede took out the armatures, before it moved to return to a standard orbit. The biotics quickly moved the containers they'd used to block the way out of the way and moved back down, where they found the smoking and sparking remains of the Geth and the beacon, which thankfully had not been hit. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Saren.

"Could he be dead?" Finn asked.

"I sincerely doubt we're that lucky," Rhys said.

Radioing up to the Normandy, Rhys let Captain Anderson know that they'd secured the beacon and that they needed a retrieval team sent down as soon as possible. There was still enough lingering thoron radiation in the area that a transporter lock couldn't be achieved, plus the beacon belonged to the people of this universe and thus Melissa and Joran couldn't justify taking it. They were curious about it, but both knew that stealing the beacon would destroy any good will they'd just earned with the people of this universe, so it was much better to let them handle it their way.

Joran and his team moved a few meters away and began talking amongst themselves, as Melissa and her team did the same. Meanwhile, Rhys and Finn began talking with Nihlus about the Spectres, as they were even more curious now than they had been earlier. Of course, earlier their curiosity had stemmed from simply serving on the same ship as a Spectre, now, however, there was a chance that they were actually going to become humanity's first Spectres, so that had only served to increase their curiosity tenfold.

Waiting for the retrieval team and engrossed in their own conversations, initially nobody noticed when the beacon began glowing. Kaidan was the first to notice and squinted slightly as he moved closer to get a better look. Of course, this proved to be the wrong thing to do because he soon realized that the beacon was emitting some type of pulling force which had grabbed onto him and was pulling him towards the beacon.

"Shepard, help!" Kaidan exclaimed.

Seeing what was happening, Rhys and Finn jumped into action and rushed forward. Wrapping their arms around Kaidan's midsection they were able to pull him free of the beacon's influence, but got caught in it themselves in the process. As Rhys and Finn were lifted up into the air just as Saren had been while he was interacting with the beacon, Kaidan got up and took one step towards them, as if to help them, but Nihlus stopped him. "No, don't touch them."

Joran and Melissa, noticing what was happening, quickly moved over to Kaidan and Nihlus, as Joran asked, "What's happening?"

"I'm not sure," Nihlus said. "I'm a soldier, not a scientist, so I'm afraid Prothean beacons aren't something I know much about, so, I don't know if this is normal behavior for it or not."

After a few minutes, which to those watching the Shepard twins suspended in midair seemed much longer, they were thrown clear of the beacon, where they fell to the ground unconscious, as the beacon exploded.

-o-0-o-

A little over fifteen hours later aboard the Normandy, Kaidan, who'd been standing vigil over the twins noticed movement and said, "Dr. Chakwas, I think they're waking up."

As Karin put down the report she'd been reading and stood up, Rhys and Finn sat up on the bed and both grabbed their heads, as they swung their legs over the side of bed. They remained seated, however, as neither one felt up to standing just yet.

"How are you feeling, Commander?" Karin asked.

Both Rhys and Finn groaned, as Rhys said, "Like the morning after shore leave," at the same time that Finn said, "I've certainly felt better."

After a moment, Finn raised his head and asked, "How long were we out?"

"About fifteen hours," Karin revealed. "Both Dr. Derikson of the Anteros and Dr. Fortier of the Ganymede were here and examined you, but I didn't allow them to treat you. As I wasn't about to let two doctors I'd only just met come into my infirmary and treat two people who are under my care with methods that I've never seen or heard of before."

"Thanks, Doc," Rhys said. "Since Finn and I haven't met them either, I think we'd prefer you to be the one treating us anyway."

Karin nodded. "Anyway, they did scan you and according to the readings of the devices that they said were medical scanners, you didn't have any serious injuries. My own examinations concurred with that assessment, but I think it's still going to take some time for me to warm up to their methods, no matter how efficient they might be." She paused here for a moment, before continuing with, "Something obviously happened down there with the beacon, and for all their fancy medical equipment, Drs. Derikson and Fortier were also at a loss as to what."

"It was my fault," Kaidan said. "I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way."

Turning slightly and giving him a weak smile, Rhys said, "Don't blame yourself, Kaidan. You had no way of knowing what would happen."

"We don't even know if that is what set it off or not," Karin said. "And unfortunately we never will."

"Why?" Finn asked.

"The beacon exploded," Kaidan answered. "System overload, perhaps. We think it was the force from the explosion that knocked you two out."

"Physically, you're both fine," Karin said. "However, I did detect some unusual brain activity in the form of abnormal beta waves. Additionally, there was a marked increase in your rapid eye movement, which are signs that would typically be associated with intense dreaming."

Rhys and Finn shared a look at this, before Rhys said, "I saw… I'm not really sure what I saw."

Finn nodded and said, "Death, destruction, nothing is really clear."

"Hmm, I'll add this to my report," Karin said. She was about to say more when the infirmary door opened. "Oh, Captain Anderson."

"How are our XO's holding up?"

"All the readings look normal," Karin said. "I'd say the Commander is going to be fine."

"Glad to hear it," Anderson said, as he added, "Shepard, I need to speak with you." Turning his eyes towards Karin and Kaidan, he added, "In private."

Saluting, Kaidan said, "Aye, aye, Captain. I'll be in the mess if you need me," before he and Karin left the room for a few minutes.

Once they'd both left, Anderson said, "That beacon obviously hit you both pretty hard to knock you out for this long. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Aside from throbbing headaches, we're more or less okay," Rhys said, as Finn nodded, before he thought about Jenkins and said, "I don't really like soldiers dying under my command."

Shaking his head, Anderson said, "Jenkins, wasn't your fault, Commander. You both did a good job down there."

"Good job?" Rhys asked. "The thing we went there for blew up. Not sure how that qualifies as a good job."

Anderson nodded. "Indeed, I won't lie, Shepard, things look bad. The beacon is destroyed and the Geth are invading. The Council is definitely going to want answers and at this point I'm not sure we have any answers to give them. On top of this, of course, we also have our new friends to deal with."

Finn nodded. "Yeah, I'm not sure how we're going to explain to the Council that some of them are human but that they're not part of the Systems Alliance. At least with the aliens among their crews, the Council would be more likely to accept them as newcomers to the Citadel and proceed with first contact operations. I don't see them doing that for humans, though, seeing as how they think they already did it over a decade ago."

"True. There's also the added wrinkle of Saren. The other Turian that was down on Eden Prime. He's a Spectre, Shepard. One of the best the Council has and practically a living legend who's trained countless other Spectres, including Nihlus. If he's working with the Geth, however, that means he's gone rogue and a rogue Spectre is trouble with a capital T. So I can't stress enough that Saren is very dangerous and to make matters worse, he hates humans."

"Why?" Rhys asked.

"He thinks we're growing too fast and trying to take over the galaxy," Anderson answered. "A lot of the other races on the Citadel think that and I can't say that the appearance of our new friends is going to help that situation. Especially when two of the ships have a majority human crew. Their ships are also stronger than anything I've ever seen. Honestly I think the smallest of the four could probably easily go toe to toe with the Destiny Ascension and win."

Rhys and Finn had a feeling that Anderson was probably right about that, because as large and impressive as the Asari dreadnaught that served as the flagship of the Citadel Fleet was, these new ships belonging to the Federation, Klingon Empire, and Romulan Republic were in a class all by themselves. Neither of them had ever seen anything quite like them and the fact that they were using directed energy weapons instead of the kinetic weaponry employed by both the Systems Alliance and every other race they'd ever come into contact with certainly gave them pause.

"At any rate, Saren by himself is dangerous, but with an army of Geth backing him up?" Anderson asked. "I don't understand how he got them on his side or why he'd even seek them out in the first place, but I'd say it's a safe bet that it had something to do with the beacon. You two interacted with the beacon before it blew so did you see anything? Any clue at all as to what Saren might have been after?"

Rhys and Finn shared another look, before Finn said, "I'm not entirely certain, but I think the beacon downloaded information into our brains. The problem is, neither of us speaks Prothean, so all I saw was a jumbled mess of images that didn't make any sense."

Rhys nodded. "Yeah, same here. It appeared to be images of death and destruction. I saw synthetics butchering organics and at first I thought maybe it was the Geth, but that wouldn't make any sense considering that the beacon was Prothean and the Geth didn't exist 50,000 years ago."

Anderson was quiet for a moment, before he said, "We need to tell this to the Council."

Rhys scoffed at that and asked, "And tell them what, exactly? That Finn and I had bad dreams?"

"We don't know what was stored in that beacon," Anderson said. "I'm inclined to agree with you that whatever you saw probably had nothing to do with the Geth as the Protheans were long extinct when they were created. So for all we know, you may have seen the blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction. Blueprints that Saren presumably has as well, since we know he interacted with the beacon just as the two of you did."

"That's definitely a disturbing thought," Finn said, as Rhys nodded.

"Indeed it is," Anderson said. Opening his mouth to say something else, he didn't get the chance, as Joker came over the comms.

"Captain, there's an incoming message from an Admiral Janeway, aboard the Anteros," Joker revealed. "She says that the ground teams from the Ganymede and Var'mang found something down on Eden Prime."

"Did she say what?" Anderson asked, even as he couldn't help but be taken aback slightly as up until now he'd been unaware that there was an Admiral aboard the Anteros, as thus far his only communications had been with the captains of the new vessels.

"Negative, sir," Joker said. "She only said that it would be of tremendous interest to us."

-o-0-o-

After a rather cryptic conversation with Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Anderson, Nihlus, Rhys, and Finn found themselves heading back down to Eden Prime. The Admiral offered to transport them down using their teleporting technology, but the four of them were more than a little leery about having their bodies broken down on the subatomic level and then reassembled. So, instead, the Normandy reentered Eden Prime's atmosphere and flew close enough to the ground that the four of them could jump down to the ground.

Subcommander Koal Lareth was nearby to meet them. After introductions, since he and Anderson hadn't previously met, Koal led the three humans and lone Turian into a cave system just south of the main colony.

"We had to open up the passage, as it wasn't cleared earlier," Koal explained, "which explains why the colonists here have never found this."

"Found what, exactly?" Nihlus asked.

Koal didn't say anything, however, for at that moment they all entered a large bunker like room deep underground. There was clear evidence of some kind of fight in the large room, as there were marks that looked like they were made by weapons fire and some destroyed black coffin-like things that nobody from the Normandy recognized.

"What is this place?" Rhys asked.

"Judging from the Prothean ruins unearthed near where the beacon was originally found," Kathryn answered, "this appears to be a Prothean bunker. And these," she motioned towards six of the black coffin-like things that weren't damaged as many of the others were, "are cryostasis pods."

"Cryo what?" Finn asked.

"Cryostasis pods," Kathryn answered. "Each of these pods contains a living being who's been preserved in a frozen state of deep sleep that very closely resembles death. We quantum-dated the pods and found that they're 49,781 years old. There's thousands of them in this facility, however, as you can see a good number of them are damaged and several of them have stopped working. It seems there's a virtual intelligence program that was monitoring the pods, triaging them as necessary to conserve power."

"Wait, are you saying that there's living Protheans inside these things?" Rhys asked.

Kathryn nodded. "I can't say that for certain, as I've never seen or scanned a Prothean, however, there is a living being in each of these six pods, which are the only ones still operational. If our scans are correct, it appears to be three males and three females."

"Unfortunately," Toran said, as he came over to stand next to Admiral Janeway, "they're locked and we can't open them because our scans indicate that the locking mechanism requires a very specific code be input into the control panels on the side of each pod to unlock it. And there also appears to be a failsafe in place which would destroy the pod if the wrong code is entered."

"We have what's called a Universal Translator," Valdren said, "that assists us in translating the language of newly encountered races. Unfortunately, it couldn't crack the Prothean language, as I imagine there's not enough similarity between it and anything in the translator's database. So, all we've done for now is hooked up extra power generation to the systems that the pods are feeding off of. Thus ensuring that these six pods will remain fully powered and hopefully not go offline until we find a way to unlock them."

"Can't the VI that's monitoring the pods help in unlocking them?"

"Unfortunately, no," Toran said. "It appears that the VI took nearly all of its own systems offline to conserve power. Only leaving on the bare minimum necessary to triage the pods and deactivate them as necessary. So, the VI no longer has the ability to communicate and thus can't help us."

Kathryn nodded. "The portions of its programming that control communication have been without power for so long that the coding has degraded and is beyond the point of being salvaged so even if we gave the VI more power, we wouldn't be able to reactivate it. Not to mention the fact that reactivating it would require being able to read the writing on the Prothean consoles and we can't do that as of yet."

"Well, you were certainly correct about it being an interesting find," Anderson said. "The potential of six living Protheans is hard to fathom."

"Indeed it is," Finn agreed. "Ultimately their race is probably still doomed as I doubt six could act as a sustainable gene pool over the long term, but it's still better than being totally extinct as we thought they were."

"If the Protheans had these cryostasis pods here on Eden Prime," Rhys said, "could it be possible that they might have other such pods on other planets? They did have a galaxy-spanning empire, after all, so there's plenty of other places we could potentially find more pods."

"It's certainly possible that there may be more pods," Kathryn said. "I do have some experience with cryostasis pods as this isn't the first batch of them that I've been involved in finding."

"Really?" Nihlus asked.

Kathryn nodded. "Back home, before I became an Admiral, I was the Captain of the USS Voyager and long story short, we found ourselves trapped in a far flung corner of our galaxy, several thousand light years from home. It took seven years to finally get back, but while we were exploring the quadrant of space we were in, we came across a planet that had eight cryostasis pods. Amazingly the pods in question actually contained humans, including a famous female pilot by the name of Amelia Earhart who'd been kidnapped by aliens four-hundred years earlier. We revived them and they chose to stay on the planet, as they had several descendants living there."

"I went to the academy with a few people who mentioned that," Toran revealed. "I think they'd probably love to meet Ms. Earhart, assuming she's still alive over in the Delta Quadrant. Now that we actually have a relatively quick means of getting there. Well, we don't, but back home they do."

"Indeed. She may still be alive, although I believe she was in her 40's when she was kidnapped from Earth and it's been thirty-nine years now since she was revived from cryostasis, so she's not exactly a spring chicken anymore. Then again, neither am I."

There was a lull in the conversation for a moment, until finally Finn, looking at Toran, asked, "I'm sorry, this is completely out of left field, but how long did those tattoos take?"

"Tattoos?" Toran asked, momentarily confused, before he said, "Oh you mean my spots?" Finn nodded. "Those aren't tattoos. I know I look human, but I'm not. I'm a Trill. All of my people have spots similar to mine and before you ask, as many people do, they do go all the way down to my toes."

"So I take it then that Captain Dex of the Var'mang is also a Trill?" Nihlus asked.

Toran nodded. "Yes, Joran is my identical twin brother, as I'm sure you guessed."

"Yes, that's rather hard to miss," Rhys agreed. "Hmm, it's going to be confusing working with two people named Captain Dex, although I suppose no more confusing than the fact that Rhys and I are both Commander Shepard."

"Actually, you won't be working with two people named Captain Dex," Toran corrected. "Joran is Captain Dex, whereas I'm Captain Ren. We have different surnames because some Trill are joined with a sentient vermiform lifeform called a symbiont. They can't live for very long outside of the pools they were born in on Trill, unless they're joined with a host. Each symbiont has a name which replaces the surname of the host after joining. Joran and I were actually born Joran and Toran Belar, but became Joran Dex and Toran Ren after we were each joined with a symbiont."

Anderson, Nihlus, Rhys, and Finn were all quiet after this, before Finn said, "Okay, well, that's different to say the least. I assume there's some kind of benefit to being joined?"

Toran nodded. "The symbionts can live for centuries so when its host dies, it's implanted in a new host and the new host gains all of the memories and skills of the previous host in addition to the ones they already possessed. So, in my case, I have a very wide array of skills because I'm the eighth host of the Ren symbiont and past hosts have included a rather wide array of people with a variety of skills. Including a medical doctor, a diplomat, and an artist/musician who was also into gourmet cooking."

"Hmm, so it's almost like a means of immortality in a way," Anderson said.

"That would be a workable description, yes," Toran nodded. "The symbionts are not immortal and they like almost every other form of life do die eventually, although they do commonly live for several hundred years and allow for the memories of their past hosts to survive for centuries after they pass away. As Ren's eighth host, while I am only 32 years old and have been joined for 10 years. All combined, the seven previous hosts were joined with Ren for 419 years and actually represent a total of 577 years of life if you add up all their ages when they died."

"A bit like the Asari then, I suppose," Nihlus said. "They don't join with any form of symbiont, but they do frequently live for a thousand years or more. Of course, the Krogan can also live for quite a while, as there's a number of them that are also over a thousand." Shaking his head and turning to Anderson, he said, "At any rate, we really should be getting back to the Citadel and see about getting an appointment with the Council, which should be quite easy since I'm a Spectre. Although I have a feeling that they will be hesitant to believe that Saren has gone rogue, as he is one of their best agents."

Anderson nodded, before looking at Kathryn and asking, "Are your ships actually capable of using the mass relay network?"

"I've had a combined team from all four ships studying that since our arrival," Kathryn answered. "They believe that, yes, our ships should be able to use the mass relays, despite the fact that we do not employ element zero drive cores. From what they can tell, that's not actually necessary, as the relay's eezo core generates all the power for the jump."

"Well, in that event, I guess we should all get a move on towards the Citadel," Rhys said, as several of the others nodded in agreement.

-o-0-o-

To be continued.

And there you have Chapter Four of The Q Effect. I was tempted to put the first meeting with the Council in this chapter, but then I figured I'll save that for the next arc so that all of the related content that happens on the Citadel (such as recruiting Garrus, Tali, and Wrex and obtaining the proof that Saren has gone rogue) can be together. So, Javik's cryostasis pod has been found three years earlier than it was in the game thanks to Star Trek sensor technology and he's no longer the sole surviving Prothean, due to the pods being found three years earlier. That should certainly have an interesting effect on the story, although the pods will remain sealed for the time being as I think before they can be opened, the Prothean Cipher will have to be obtained from the Thorian on Feros. Question is, when faced with six living Protheans, who lived during the last Reaper invasion will the Council believe them or continue to be their normal skeptical and dismissive selves?

At any rate, this is the third chapter of this arc and that means that I'll now be restarting my update schedule at #1, which is A Windsor/Royal at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter fandom, and thus it'll be awhile before I get back to this story, since its number #6 on the schedule. It may also take a bit longer since on this first run through my newly adopted schedule I limited each story to only three chapters, but on the second run through each story will get between three and five additional chapters, so some might get three where others might get four or five.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to contact me in a review, by email, my Yahoo group, or on Twitter JVascardi. Alternatively, you can also try to contact me via Skype (text messaging only) at .


	5. Chapter 5

The Q Effect  
Written by J.C. Vascardi

-o-0-o-

Disclaimer: All characters and places featured in this story that relates to Star Trek are the property of CBS Studios, Inc. and/or Paramount Pictures, while all featured characters and places that are related to the game Star Trek Online are the property of Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, and finally all featured characters and places that relate to Mass Effect are the property of Bioware/EA. I'm not profiting from this story and it is not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright or trademark. The only things about this story that I own are the characters and storylines not featured in the shows, games, books, or other media.

 **Author's Note:** What I'm about to say is not necessarily about this chapter, but it's something that's been on my mind for quite a while now and I just wanted to address it. There will be times when I release a chapter that will have no clear forward movement in terms of plot. This is because sometimes I just want to write something that fits in the story's universe but is not directly tied to the plot, but that I still think a majority of my readers will like and enjoy. And sometimes things that may not appear to be tied to the plot are in fact important to the plot or subplots, whether they appear to be so or not.

Also, in case it wasn't clear from my penname, I'm male and I'm also gay. My stories will most often focus on the gay relationships because that's what interests me. However, that does not mean that I'm sexist or that I hate women. Neither of those is true. If it was, there wouldn't be any women in my story at all and I think if you've read this far, then you know that even if they are in the background, there are still female characters present. I also do not hate heterosexual people, as I, like most people, owe my very existence to a pair of them. My choice to place them in the background doesn't change that or indicate that I hold any ill will towards them, however.

Ultimately, this is my story and I can write whatever I want. I don't expect all of you reading my works to like them or even to agree with everything that I write. Also, I welcome feedback and suggestions. However, if all you're going to do is criticize everything I do (whether that's my interpretation of the canon or the characters, or that the plot is moving too slow, etc.), cuss at me, or make assumptions about my character (see the above paragraph) then I can do without hearing from you and really would rather you didn't contact me at all. This message isn't directed at anyone specific who's ever read my works, either in the past or in the future. I've honestly been thinking about this for years now, but I've refrained from saying anything. Mostly because I'd hoped it didn't need to be said.

So, in short, my story, my choice. I'm writing this story for fun and to give voice to my imagination. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to read this, so go read something else or write your own story. And if you don't like my story and continue to read it, or you like it but decide to ignore everything that I wrote above? Don't expect a response should you opt to review, because you will not get one. And now, on with the story.

-o-0-o-

 _Previously in 'The Q Effect'…._

-o-0-o-

The teams from the Anteros and Var'mang get to know Rhys and Finn Shepard and their team better as they assist them on Eden Prime. While he would recover without much problem, Nevin was shot during the battle, underlining the necessity of the Starfleet personnel obtaining armor instead of relying simply on their shields. Reaching the platform where the beacon had been moved, they found the toughest resistance yet in the form of three Geth Armatures and a Geth Colossus. Due to the thoron radiation being emitted by the beacon—which interfered with both transporters and sensors—the Ganymede was sent down to initiate a manual target lock on the four platforms, destroying them utterly. The beacon was, thankfully, saved although Saren appeared to have escaped.

The safety of the beacon didn't last long, however, as a few minutes later it activated and downloaded information directly into the minds of Rhys and Finn, before exploding. As their briefing with Captain Anderson was wrapping up, Kathryn Janeway contacted the Normandy to let them know that they'd made a discovery on the surface of Eden Prime, which turned out to be an underground bunker full of cryostasis pods. Despite being nearly 50,000 years old, six of the pods were still functioning and scans determined that their inhabitants—presumably Protheans—were still alive.

-o-0-o-

Chapter Five

-o-0-o-

Following the discovery on Eden Prime, Kathryn decided that the Anteros would remain there under cloak to guard the caves and make sure that the inhabitants of the pods were kept safe from anyone who might wish them harm. It was one thing to study the Protheans and reverse engineer their technology, but everyone agreed that there were likely to be some elements of the galactic community that wouldn't exactly look favorably upon a living, breathing Prothean, let alone six of them. Of course, there were also certain elements in the galaxy who would see the discovery as a means of making a lot of credits, so that was all the more reason to keep the discovery under guard.

The Ganymede, Var'mang and Incepteris were currently en route along with the Normandy to the Citadel. Having agreed to brave the transporters, Rhys and Finn were aboard the Ganymede along with Captains Ren, Bristol-Drake, Dex, and Commander Lareth, discussing their upcoming arrival at the Citadel.

"I hesitate to bring this up," Finn said, "but it would probably be for the best if you don't allow the android… Kyle… onto the Citadel."

"Why?" Toran asked, a confused look on his face.

Before Finn could answer, Joran said, "Apparently AIs are illegal in this universe."

"Highly illegal," Rhys said. "Their development is banned by order of the Citadel Council. Not everyone agrees with the ban, but that doesn't change the Council's directive."

Finn nodded. "The Alliance has even discharged some of its finest over their interest in AIs. One such example is our fellow N7 Alec Ryder. He was friends with our parents, as they were stationed on the same ship at one point in the mid-2160's. There were a few times that our parents were all on duty at the same time as Alec and his late wife Ellen, so, Rhys and I babysat their twin children, Scott and Sara, several times, before Alec was reassigned as a military attaché on the Citadel in 2169."

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a sudden flash of white light which caused Rhys and Finn to jump at the unexpected arrival of a man seemingly out of thin air. Toran, Joran, Will, and Valdren, however, were seemingly unphased by the sudden appearance, of course, unlike Rhys and Finn, they'd met this particular person before, considering it was him who sent them all this way.

With a sigh, Toran said, "Hello Q."

"Enjoying your vacation to this alternate universe?" Q asked.

Ignoring the question, Joran rolled his eyes and asked, "What do you want, Q?"

Noticing Rhys and Finn, Q said, "Now, now manners. Introductions first."

"Why?" Valdren asked. "You already know who they are, I'm sure."

Q nodded. "Well, duh, of course, I know that they're Rhys and Finn Shepard, but they don't know who I am, now do they?"

"Um, have we met?" Finn asked, at the same time that Rhys asked, "How do you know who we are?"

"Rhys, Finn, meet Q." Will said, "Yes, that's his full name, not a nickname. It's also his species, as he's a member of the Q Continuum."

"Yes the Q Continuum," Joran said. "A race of perpetually annoying omnipotent beings with unlimited control over matter, space, and time."

"We didn't come through one of the inactive relays," Toran explained. "We're actually from an alternate version of the Milky Way Galaxy and it was Q who sent us here."

"An alternate version of the galaxy?" Finn asked. He'd obviously heard Q's opening question, but hadn't commented on it as Joran spoke before he could.

Will nodded. "Starfleet is headquartered on Earth. Although as far as I know, we don't have any mass relays in our galaxy and Charon is actually a moon."

"Indeed it is," Q said, as he looked over at Rhys and said, "And I know you don't believe that I'm truly omnipotent. So, I guess a demonstration is in order," before he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

As he did so, Rhys and Finn were consumed in bright light white for a brief moment, before Finn found himself sitting on the opposite side of the table from Rhys. The eyes of both of the Shepard twins widened to the size of dinner plates as they looked at each other for a moment, before looking down and realizing that Q had completely separated them from each other and they both had two legs, instead of sharing three between them.

"Do you believe me now?" Q asked.

Rhys and Finn were quiet for a moment, as they struggled to find their voices, as they'd been momentarily struck dumb by finding themselves looking at each other from opposite sides of a conference table, instead of being at each other's sides. It was Finn who spoke first, as he said, "I don't think that we have much of a choice, as you just did the impossible by separating us and giving us both two legs."

Rhys nodded. "Indeed. Now put us back the way we were."

"You don't wish to be separate?" Joran asked.

Shaking their heads, Rhys and Finn both said, "No," in perfect unison, before Finn said, "We've spent our entire lives at each other's side, so it's all we know and we concluded long ago that even if there was some way to be separated that we didn't want to be."

Rhys nodded and added, "Not to mention the fact that all of our combat prowess and skill is based on being side by side. All of our tactics depend on that connection, so without it, we'd have to relearn an entire career's worth of skills and tactics and honestly, I don't really want to spend the time necessary to do that. Something tells me we don't have the time for that either, so I just want Finn back at my side where he belongs."

"Same here," Finn said. "After being constantly at Rhys's side for over twenty years, I just can't imagine my life without him."

"So be it," Q said as he snapped his fingers again and seconds later, Rhys and Finn found themselves back on the same side of the table and reconnected to each other as they'd been born. More to himself, but still audible to everyone in the room, he said, "I'll never understand humans… within this galaxy or any other."

Turning his attention away from Rhys and Finn, Q said, "Anyway, the reason I popped in is that I forgot to tell Admiral Quinn to tell you. When you arrive on the Citadel, you should all go see a Volus financial advisor by the name of Barla Von. You'll find him on the Presidium. I figured having money here would be useful, so I've set up personal expense accounts for each of you and Aunt Kathy, along with a general purpose account for your ships and outfitting your crews, etc. Just tell Barla Von that you're with Continuum Enterprises, and he'll know what to do."

"Okay, then," Valdren said. "I have to admit, I did wonder how we were going to buy anything in this universe, as I rather doubt that Romulan currency is of any value here, considering that Romulus doesn't even exist here."

"Technically it doesn't back home either," Q said, "although I understand that supernova that destroyed it and Remus is a bit of a touchy subject for your people." Ignoring Valdren's muttered comment, Q said, "Anyway, I'm sure you'll find Barla to be good at his job. All Volus are good with money. They are, after all, the authors of the Unified Banking Act which established the credit as the galactic currency."

Turning his attention back to Rhys and Finn, Q added, "Oh and the next time you send an email to Scott or Sara, you might want to ask them to have their father contact you. Continuum Enterprises has an account set aside to help fund the Andromeda Initiative. Oh, and do tell them to pass along the message to their father and Jien Garson that they should refrain from being complete and total idiots and arm the ships they're sending to Andromeda. I get that they don't want to be seen as an invasion force, but they will be with or without weapons, so trust me when I say that they'll be glad to have weapons systems when they arrive in Andromeda in 2819."

Before anyone could say anything, Q said, "Anyway, I must be going. So, later all," before he snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash.

"Andromeda Initiative?" Joran asked.

"It's a privately funded civilian enterprise," Rhys answered. "They're seeking to colonize the Andromeda Galaxy. I'd heard rumors that Alec Ryder was involved, but until now I thought they were just that."

Finn nodded. "Same here, although if it's true, I suppose I can't blame Alec for getting involved. His AI research has basically made him persona non grata here in the Milky Way, well at least with all of the legitimate governments. And between being active N7s," _'and my hacking skills,'_ Finn added in his head, "we've seen a few of the internal memos from Alliance Command that make it clear that Alec's discharge has effectively ended Scott's and Sara's military careers as well. Even though there's no direct proof tying them to their father's research they're still being punished for it, so I guess I can understand why they'd all seek a new life beyond the influence of the Council."

"I have to admit, a journey to another galaxy," Will said, "and I mean another actual galaxy and not just an alternate version of the Milky Way, would be an interesting endeavor. Such a journey is also impossible in our version of the Milky Way."

"Why?" Rhys asked.

"Our version has a galactic barrier surrounding it," Toran answered. "It was created millennia ago by the Q Continuum to keep an entity known only as 0 out of the Milky Way, as he was banished by the Q for the destruction of the ancient Tkon Empire, which existed over 600,000 years ago by our timeline."

"Apparently 0 is evil, insane, and possibly more powerful than the Q themselves, although the barrier keeps him out of the Milky Way," Will added. "However, it also means that nothing in the Milky Way can get out, so we can't explore other galaxies even if we did have the means of reaching them."

"I'm still not sure how the Initiative plans on getting their colony ships to Andromeda, honestly," Finn said. "It would probably take hundreds of years for them to cross dark space and while Krogans and Asari could probably live long enough, Humans, Turians, Salarians, and the other races of the galaxy couldn't possibly live that long."

"636 years I guess, since its 2183 and Q said they'd arrive in 2819," Valdren said.

"Well, I suppose multi-generational ships are a possibility," Toran said. "There is an instance in Federation history where a race known as the Kelvans—who hail from Andromeda coincidentally—came to the Milky Way seeking a new frontier to conquer. Their ship was destroyed by the galactic barrier and only a handful of them survived, but they and their ancestors had lived aboard that ship for three centuries as it apparently took them roughly 300 years to reach the Milky Way."

"Cryostasis could work too, couldn't it?" Rhys asked. "I mean it's kept the six Protheans on Eden Prime alive for nearly 50,000 years now."

"I don't see any reason why it couldn't work," Joran said. "Although you'd need to have a very good power system to ensure that the pods remained powered for the entire journey. And the ships would almost have to have an AI monitoring the pods, because if the whole crew is put in stasis then there'd be nobody to start waking them up when they reached their destination."

"Well, I suppose that may be why this Initiative was interested in Alec Ryder's AI work," Toran said. "Assuming, of course, that they had some form of cryostasis that they could use. I know the two of you, Nihlus, and Captain Anderson didn't seem to know about cryostasis pods back on Eden Prime, so I don't know if the Initiative is aware of the technology or not."

"I couldn't tell you if they are or not," Finn said. "Rhys and I have nothing to do with it. As tempting as exploring a new galaxy might be, I'm not sure it's for us. Honestly, when Rhys and I first heard about it, we both agreed it was kind of silly to pursue colonization of an entirely new galaxy when less than one percent of the two to four hundred billion potential star systems here in the Milky Way have been explored."

"I can definitely see your point there," Valdren said. "Honestly it's the same back in our version of the galaxy, as there are large sections that remain unexplored."

"Anyway, we should probably get back to talking about the Citadel," Rhys said as he raised his arm and pressed a button on his omni-tool. Causing it to project an image of the Citadel. "This is the Citadel."

"A central ring with five arms," Will said. "Interesting design."

"The ring is the Presidium," Finn explained. "The arms are called wards or Zakera, Kithoi, Tayseri, Bachjret, and Shalta Wards to be precise. The majority of the Citadel's population lives in the wards, as the apartments in the Presidium are mainly for the wealthier citizens. It's almost always open as it is in this depiction, but in emergencies, the ward arms can be closed to turn the entire station into a long, armored cylinder 45 kilometers long."

"Did you say 45 kilometers?" Toran asked. "Just how big is the Citadel?"

"Yes, he did," Rhys answered. "When the ward arms are open, the station is 44.7km long and 12.8km wide. The station weighs in at 7.11 billion metric tons, with a population of 13.2 million, not including the keepers."

"Keepers?" Valdren asked.

Rhys pressed a button on his omni-tool, the image of the Citadel disappeared to be replaced by a large insect. "This is a keeper. They're an insectoid race that stands about four feet tall and they maintain the station's vital systems. Not much is known about them, however, as it's against Council law to interfere with the keepers' work in any way. Not only because they maintain the station's vital systems, including life support, but also because all attempts in the past to capture one for study results in it initiating what's basically a self-destruct protocol, in which they'll internally release a form of acid which literally melts them into a puddle of proteins and minerals in less than a minute."

"The only thing that is known about the keepers is that they've been around for as long as anyone can remember," Finn said. "They were there a thousand years ago when the Asari first found the Citadel and they remain now. No matter how many of them die due to old age, violence, or accidents, there's always more of them. Nobody has ever figured out where exactly on the station they come from, as wherever it is it's not accessible to anyone but them. And they don't communicate with anyone on the station. They just continue going about their tasks as if they're the only ones there."

"Some have suggested that they're some form of biological construct, created by the Protheans," Rhys added. "But we have no way of knowing for sure since we can't really study them to find out."

"Nobody has ever scanned them?" Joran asked.

"Scanning them is generally accepted to be a form of interference," Finn replied. "And thus very few people would be willing to do it because if C-Sec—Citadel Security— catches you doing it, you can be arrested and imprisoned."

"I see, well, I guess once they're revived," Toran said, "assuming we find a way to do that, then we can ask the Protheans we found on Eden Prime."

"Message from the Normandy, Captain," Serron said over the comm. "We'll be arriving at the Citadel in five minutes."

"Thanks, Serron," Will said.

"I know with your transporters you probably don't use one often," Rhys commented, "but does your ship have an airlock?"

Nodding, Will said, "Yes, it does. So, if we can dock with the Citadel, we can exit the ship that way. Otherwise, we can transport or use a shuttlecraft."

"I think a shuttlecraft might be the best option after the airlock," Toran opined. "Transporter technology is not something that the people in this galaxy are familiar with and it would probably be best if we didn't share too much of our capabilities with them, at least not right away."

"Not to mention the fact that people appearing out of thin air might cause a panic," Finn added. "And trigger a security alert that would have C-Sec detaining you. And you could probably all do without that hassle if it can be avoided."

"Agreed," Will said, as Joran and Valdren nodded their heads.

-o-0-o-

Arriving at the Citadel, the Normandy docked at the station, although Rhys and Finn did return to the Normandy via transporter. Joran and Valdren also returned to their own ships. After some discussion with Citadel Docking Control, it was decided that the Ganymede, Incepteris, and Var'mang would all launch shuttlecraft to get their away teams to the station, as nobody at Docking Control was quite sure which docking slips to send them to, being that they weren't from any recognized government. There were a small number of diplomatic docking bays which weren't affiliated with any specific government, but they were all occupied at the moment.

After some discussion, it was decided that the away teams going over to the Citadel would be small, limited only to three people each. Since his crew was still aboard the Anteros, Toran joined Will and Bryan, although they also decided to bring Barin with them, as they thought his Betazoid abilities might be useful. Valdren opted to bring his first officer, Tovan Khev, and his brother, Kaol, while Joran opted to bring Nikaz and Hosu with him.

This was mainly due to the fact that while they were Orions and had green skin, other than Joran himself they looked the must human. Something which definitely couldn't be said for any of the Klingon members of Joran's crew or the Gorn for that matter. There was also some question as to whether or not the Citadel's doorways would be tall enough to accommodate Lt. Cmdr. Thraak's 8-foot 1-inch height.

Once they were all on the Citadel, Captain Anderson asked Kaidan to show the Starfleet, Romulan, and Klingon delegations to the Financial District on the Presidium to speak to Barla Von, while he accompanied Nihlus, Rhys and Finn, and Ambassador Donnel Udina up to the top of the Council Tower to meet with the Council about Saren's attack on Eden Prime.

-o-0-o-

"The Geth attack is a matter of some concern," admitted Tevos, the Asari councilor. "But there is nothing to indicate that Saren was involved in any way."

"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason," added Sparatus, the Turian councilor.

"Then they're not doing their jobs properly," Nihlus argued. "I was there and I spoke to Saren. If he had his way I'd be dead right now."

"Well, let us contact Saren and let him answer for these alleged crimes," suggested Valern, the Salarian councilor, as he pressed a button on the console in front of him to activate a holo-call to Saren aboard his ship.

"Councilors, what can I do for you?" Saren asked after he'd picked up the call, causing a large holographic representation of himself to appear above the nearby holo-emitter.

"Ambassador Udina has charged you with treason, Saren," Sparatus said. "Says that you were leading an attack on the human colony of Eden Prime. And Nihlus claims that you tried to kill him."

"I resent these accusations," Saren replied. "Nihlus is a fellow Spectre, a friend, and my former student. I would no more harm him than I would my own son. Besides, I'm nowhere near Eden Prime and I haven't been for several weeks."

"That's a lie!" Nihlus shouted. "You were on Eden Prime, Saren. We talked. You told me that the Council thought I could use some help on the mission there and then you were going to shoot me in the back of the head. I've always thought of you as a friend, Saren, but I don't understand why you'd do this."

"Because I didn't," Saren said, calmly. "As I said, I wasn't on Eden Prime today and have been nowhere near that area of space for weeks now."

"You were there, Saren," Udina argued. "We have an eyewitness report from Nihlus that places you on Eden Prime only a few hours ago."

"Not to mention those of over a dozen other eyewitnesses," Anderson added.

"Captain Anderson," Saren said. "You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me. And these must be your protégés. Referred to singularly as Commander Shepard, I believe? The ones who allowed the beacon to be destroyed if I read the mission reports correctly."

"You're the one who destroyed the beacon!" Rhys exclaimed angrily. "Then you tried to cover it up."

"How do you even know about the beacon?" Finn asked. "That mission was top secret. The only way you could know about it is if you were there."

"That's where you're wrong, Commander. I'm a Spectre, one of the Citadel's best. My security clearance is more than high enough to access top secret files, so the fact that I know of the beacon proves nothing." Shaking his head, Saren said, "As for your brother's comments, shift the blame to cover your own failures, just like Captain Anderson. He's taught you well," as he turned to look at the council and asked, "but then what can you expect from a human?"

Rhys looked ready to retort at that, but Finn stopped him. Saren continued with, "As to these additional eyewitnesses they mentioned, where are they? I notice they're conveniently not here. Besides that fact, according to the mission reports, none of them have ever even met me before, so their statements are hardly worth anything since they only have Nihlus's word as to my identity. And as we've already established, I was nowhere near Eden Prime."

"So you say," Rhys said before Finn could stop him. "It's a well-known fact that you hate humanity. Which gives you a reason to attack Eden Prime."

"Your species needs to learn its place, Shepard," Saren said dismissively. "You're not ready to join the Council. You're not even ready to join the Spectres."

"He has no right to say that," Udina argued. "That's not his decision."

Looking over at the holographic Saren, Tevos said, "The Shepard twins' admission to the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting."

"This meeting has no purpose," Saren argued. "The humans are wasting your time, Councilor. And mine."

"Saren is hiding behind his position as a Spectre," Finn said, beginning to get frustrated himself at the Council's inaction.

Nodding Rhys added, "You all need to open your eyes."

"No, what we need is evidence," Valern said. "So far we've seen nothing."

"There is still one outstanding issue," Anderson said. "Commander Shepard's vision. It may have been triggered by the beacon."

"Are we allowing dreams into evidence now?" Saren asked. "How can I possibly defend my innocence against that kind of testimony?"

"I agree," Sparatus said. "Our judgment must be based on facts and evidence, not wild imaginings and reckless speculation."

"Do you have anything else to add, Commander Shepard?" Valern asked. "Either of you?"

Rhys and Finn shared a look, as they both realized that this was getting them nowhere. Nodding once at each other, Finn said, "You've already made your decision," before Rhys added, "So we're not going to waste our breath."

The three councilors conferred quietly for a moment, before Tevos said, "The Council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren and the Geth attack on Eden Prime. Ambassador Udina, your petition to have Saren disbarred from the Spectres is denied."

"I'm glad to see justice was served," Saren said, before ending the holo-call.

"This meeting is adjourned," Tevos said.

-o-0-o-

After they'd all left the Council Chamber, Udina shook his head and said, "It was a mistake bringing you into that meeting, Captain Anderson. You and Saren have too much history. It made the Council question our motives."

"I know Saren," Anderson insisted. "He's working with the Geth for one reason: to exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk and every planet we control is in danger. Even Earth isn't safe."

Rhys was nodding along with Anderson, while Finn, who had always been the more level-headed one, turned to Udina and asked, "What's our next step?"

"As a Spectre, he's virtually untouchable," Udina answered. "We need to find some way of exposing him."

"Hmm," Finn said after a moment of thought. "Garrus might be able to help."

"Garrus?" Udina asked.

"A Turian C-Sec officer," Finn answered. "We overheard him arguing with Executor Pallin on the way up here. He was asking for more time to finish his report and hinted that he was close to finding something more on Saren."

"We should also check in with Captain Ren and the others," Rhys said with a sigh. "They have more advanced sensors. Maybe they have something we can use."

"Perhaps," Udina commented. "Either way, bring them to my office. I want to meet these other humans that you say aren't part of the Systems Alliance. For now, I have business to attend to. Anderson, meet me in my office."

"I'm going to step away from this, Shepard," Anderson said once Udina was gone. "We can't afford to let my past with Saren potentially get in the way again. So Nihlus and the two of you will have to handle this from here on out. Good luck."

-o-0-o-

Meanwhile, on the Presidium, having finished their business with Barla Von, Toran and company were looking around at their surroundings and there was one thing that seemed abundantly apparent to them all: whoever designed and built the Citadel was not the same person or group who built the vast majority of the ships they'd seen docked with it. The technology, while appearing to be similar in some cases, was far more advanced in most others.

Of course, they didn't voice this opinion. Because they knew what their guide Kaidan would say if they did. He'd say that the Protheans had built the Citadel and the Mass Relays, and while the other races of the galaxy—Human, Asari, Turian, Salarian, Krogan, Elcor, and Volus to name a few—had reverse-engineered almost all of their technology from the Protheans, what they had was merely a drop in the bucket in comparison to the full technological breakthroughs made by the Protheans. Assuming it actually was the Protheans as the people of this galaxy believed.

"Well, I suppose the first order of business is to spend some of the money we just got," Toran said. "We need to outfit our crews with the proper armor."

"The Emporium is over here," Kaidan said, leading them towards a nearby store.

"What is that?" Joran asked, upon seeing the tentacled creature floating in the center of the store.

"A Hanar," Kaidan said. "They're an excessively polite race, who never speaks in the first person to anyone but close friends or family. They consider it egotistical."

As they approached the creature in question, which looked rather much like a large jellyfish, it said, "This one's name is Delanynder, but it knows that may be difficult for your people to say, so you may call this one Delan. Welcome to this one's store, is there anything it can help you with today?"

"What do you sell?" Toran asked.

"This one sells only the finest and most luxurious items that credits can buy," Delan said. "It also sells licenses for Sirta Foundation, Devlon Industries, and Serrice Council."

"Licenses?" Bryan asked.

"Armory licenses," Kaidan said. "Purchasing one will allow your requisitions officer to access the products manufactured by the company on the license. Right now, the Normandy's requisitions officer only has access to products produced by Hahne-Kedar, an Earth-based weapon and armor manufacturer who is the major supplier of the Systems Alliance military."

"Not for long," Rhys said, as he walked into the store and over to the sales kiosk. Pressing a couple buttons, he purchased the Sirta Foundation license, which a shop assistant brought over to him a moment later.

"Well, the Req. Officer on the Normandy will be happy to have this," Finn said. "We'd buy the other two for the Normandy, but we don't have that kind of money."

Looking at the prices, Toran realized that each license costs a different amount, with the license for the Sirta Foundation costing only 100 credits, while the license for Devlon Industries cost 6,250 credits and the one for the Serrice Council cost a whopping 30,000 credits. Toran knew, however, that none of them were actually outside of his price range, as Q had been very generous with the credit balance he'd placed in the accounts set up in connection with Continuum Enterprises.

Having watched what Rhys did, Toran purchased the licenses for the Anteros, figuring that it couldn't hurt to have as wide a range of supplies as possible. Although he fully intended to assign a team to study the armor and see if they could use 24th-century technology to improve it. Will, Joran, and Valdren also bought them for their respective ships, before they all spent a few moments looking at Delan's other stock, all making additional purchases before leaving the store, after making arrangements for their more bulky purchases to be delivered to the shuttle bay where they'd landed their shuttles.

"So how'd the meeting with the Council go?" Valdren asked.

"Horribly," Rhys answered. "The Council refused to see reason."

Finn nodded. "They said we had no proof that Saren was there. It didn't help that they contacted Saren over holo and he said he hasn't been near Eden Prime in weeks."

"So what are you going to do now?" Bryan asked.

"Track down a C-Sec officer named Garrus," Rhys answered. "He's building a case on Saren, so hopefully he'll have some useful information."

"Okay, any idea where you might be able to find him?" Joran asked.

"We asked around a little on the way down here," Finn answered. "It was suggested we seek out a man named Harkin, also a member of C-Sec. Apparently, he spends his free time at Chora's Den, a gentleman's club in Tayseri Ward. Although, we were warned that he's a bit of a drunk."

"Good thing you don't need him as a witness," Barin said. "I doubt the Council would accept a drunk man as an acceptable witness."

"Indeed," Rhys said. "You want to come with us?"

"I'm going to head back to the shuttlebay," Valdren said. "Make sure our purchases get loaded onto the proper shuttles."

"We'll come with you," Nikaz said, as Hosu, turning to Joran asked, "If that's okay, Captain?"

Joran nodded. "Yes, go on. I'll stick with my brother for now. I'll see you back on the ship."

Tovan decided to go back with Valdren, as he believed that his commanding officer shouldn't be walking around a strange station alone. Kissing Will goodbye, Bryan accompanied the Romulans and Orions to oversee the loading of supplies onto the Federation shuttles. Valdren's brother Kaol, however, opted to remain with Joran and the others.

Giving his brother a knowing smirk, as the group made their way towards the transit station that would get them to Tayseri Ward, Toran said, "I guess I'm not surprised that Kaol stayed with you, bro. I'm only surprised that Valdren trusts you two to be alone together."

"Technically, we aren't alone," Kaol said. "Unless you think Joran and I are going to start mauling one another in front of all of you?"

"Contrary to what you might believe, I actually do have some self-restraint, brother," Joran said.

"I take it you two are a couple?" Kaidan asked, motioning towards Joran and Kaol.

"Yeah, they are," Toran confirmed. "Valdren is also with Joran, however."

Finn looked confused at that, as he asked Kaol, "Valdren is your brother, isn't he?"

Nodding, Kaol said, "Yes, he is. Long story short, Joran and Valdren were together first. Then Valdren got assimilated by the Borg. People usually don't come back from that, so in our grief, Joran and I got closer. Three years later, however, Valdren was rescued and disconnected from the Collective. Rather than making Joran choose between me and him, Valdren suggested that Joran be with both of us."

-o-0-o-

As the group arrived at the entrance to Chora's Den, they couldn't help but notice the two large aliens, Krogans, standing outside the entrance to the club. One was clearly the club's bouncer.

"Back off, Wrex. Fist told us to take you down if you showed up," the bouncer said.

"What are you waiting for?" Wrex asked. "I'm standing right here. This is Fist's only chance. If he's smart he'll take it."

"He's not coming out, Wrex," the bouncer replied. "End of story."

"This story is just beginning," Wrex said, as he turned and moving past Finn, Rhys, and the others, he said, "Out of my humans. I have no quarrel with you."

"What was that about?" Kaidan asked.

"Who knows?" Finn asked. "Let's just try not to get caught in the middle."

Nodding, Rhys said, "Yes, being caught in the middle of two Krogans is not a place I want to be."

"Well, let's just find this Harkin," Kaidan said, as the rest of the group nodded before they made their way into the club.

Like most nightclubs, low lighting and loud music were the first things that the group noticed about Chora's Den. A large circular bar sat in the middle of the establishment, numerous bartenders handing out drinks. Several tables were arranged along the outer perimeter of the club, and several of them had Asari dancers dancing on top of them to the obvious enjoyment of the patrons seated at the tables.

"I think that's him," Finn said as he pointed at a lone man sitting at a table not far away, who seemed to match the description they'd been given and was wearing a C-Sec uniform.

As Rhys and Finn approached, with the rest of the group staying nearby but not coming over so as to not overwhelm the clearly intoxicated man, the man looked at them and slurring his words a bit, said, "Alliance military? I coulda been a marine ya know. Instead, I joined the goddamned Citadel Security. Biggest mistake of my life."

"Are you Harkin?" Rhys asked.

The man nodded. "That's me. Who's asking?"

"Commander Rhys Shepard, and my brother, Finn," Rhys said. "We were told you could help us find someone. A Turian C-Sec officer named Garrus."

"Garrus?" Harkin asked. "Ha. You must be one of Captain Anderson's crew. Poor bastard's still trying to take Saren down, huh?"

Finn nodded, but remained silent, prompting Harkin to say, "I know where Garrus is, but first you've gotta tell me something. Did your captain let you in on his big secret?"

Curious, Rhys asked, "Is there something you think I should know?"

"Anderson used to be a Spectre," Harkin answered. "Didn't know that, did ya? It was all very hush, hush. He was the first human ever given that honor and then he went and blew it. Screwed up his mission so bad that they kicked him out. Of course, he blames Saren, says that he set him up."

Finn doubted that Harkin was telling the truth because as far as he knew, there had never been a human Spectre. And if there had been, it would have been next to impossible to keep it quiet. Deciding to play along, however, he asked, "So why'd they kick him out?"

"You'd have to ask him," Harkin said. "Never heard any of the details. I'll bet it's a good story though. It's a classic tragedy of the hero's fall. Ha."

"You said they covered this up," Rhys asked. "So how'd you find out about it?"

"I've spent twenty years working cases here on the Citadel," Harkin answered. "And if there's one thing I've learned in that time it's that people love to talk. And secrets are like herpes, if ya got 'em, ya might as well spread 'em around."

"I'm not sure I believe you," Finn said, inwardly sickened by the man's analogy.

"Fine, ask Anderson if you don't believe me," Harkin said. "He's too stupid and proud to lie right to your faces."

Holding back the surge of anger he felt on his captain's behalf, Rhys said, "Just tell me where Garrus went."

"Garrus was sniffing around Dr. Michel's office," Harkin said. "She runs the med clinic on the other side of the ward. Last I heard he was going back there."

"We're out of here," Finn said, as he moved away from the disgusting man, pulling Rhys along with him.

"Yeah good, leave me alone to drink in peace," Harkin said to their backs.

As they rejoined the others, Will asked, "You get what you need?"

Nodding, Rhys said, "We'll fill you in on the way."

-o-0-o-

On their way back to the transit station, Barin overheard a whispered conversation. "Well, that's interesting," he said after they were a few feet away from the whispering pair.

"What is?" Will asked.

"I just heard somebody whispering about Barla Von," Barin said. "Claimed he's some sort of agent for somebody called the Shadow Broker."

"Hmm, that could be useful," Rhys said.

"Who is the Shadow Broker?" Joran asked.

"An infamous information agent," Finn said. "Runs a galaxy-wide information network, which buys and sells secrets to the highest bidder."

"I wonder if the Broker knows anything about Saren?" Rhys asked.

"Well, we can head back to Barla Von if you want," Toran said. "If I read the sign at the transit station properly, most of the direct routes between here and where this Dr. Michel's clinic is located are closed due to construction the keepers are doing. So we can detour around it via the Financial District."

"Sounds like a plan," Finn said. "Although if Barla Von is an agent of the Broker, I'm not sure we'll be able to afford whatever price is required to get information on Saren, in credits or secrets."

-o-0-o-

Returning to the Financial District, the group reentered the office of Barla Von. As they approached, he said, "What's this? The representatives of Continuum Enterprises return. And with two new Earth-clan. And very famous ones, yes. You are the ones they call Shepard. It is a great honor to welcome the heroes of the Blitz."

"You know who we are?" Finn asked, mainly because he still wasn't totally used to being recognized.

"Indeed, Earth-clan. As your companions have no doubt told you, my name is Barla Von. My job makes it necessary that I keep informed. I am a financial advisor to many important clients here on the Citadel and when two as important as yourselves arrive at the station, I take notice."

"We've heard that you work for the Shadow Broker," Rhys said, deciding to get straight to the point. "Do you have any information about Saren?"

Volus are originally from a high-pressure planet, Irune, which has a greenhouse atmosphere capable of supporting an ammonia-based biochemistry. As a result, while off-planet, all Volus have to wear pressure suits and breathing masks when dealing with other species. This resulted in them taking what sounded like hissing breaths every now and then as they spoke.

"You're very blunt, Shepard," Barla Von said. "But you're right, I am an agent for the Shadow Broker and I do know something about Saren."

"I hear your information can be very expensive," Finn said. "So how much is this going to cost us exactly?"

"Normally, this information would cost a small fortune," Barla Von said. "However, these are exceptional circumstances, so I'm going to give it to you for free."

"What's the catch?" Kaidan asked, from his place just behind and to the left of Rhys.

"There is no catch. The Shadow Broker is quite upset with Saren right now. Saren was one of the Broker's best customers until Saren turned on him."

"He's turned on a lot of people recently," Rhys commented.

"I don't know all the details," Barla Von said. "But the Shadow Broker hired a freelancer to deal with it. A Krogan mercenary."

"Was his name Wrex?" Finn asked as he remembered the two Krogans outside Chora's Den.

"Yes, that's the one," Barla Von answered. "I heard he was paying a visit to Citadel Security. If you hurry you might catch him before he leaves the C-Sec Academy."

"Isn't it a little odd that a Krogan would want to speak to C-Sec?"

Nodding, Barla Von said, "Very, although I doubt the visit was entirely his choice. You'll need to speak to him if you want to know more."

"Well, I guess we should go then," Rhys said, as the others nodded. Thanking Barla Von for the information, they headed out.

-o-0-o-

Deciding that they could cover twice as much ground by splitting up, Rhys, Finn, Kaidan, and Toran decided to head for Dr. Michel's clinic, while Joran, Will, Kaol, and Barin went to the C-Sec Academy to see if they could find Wrex.

Arriving at the clinic, Rhys quickly put a finger to his lips as he reached for his gun when he heard a clearly panicked female voice cry out from inside. "I didn't tell anyone, I swear!"

"That was smart, Doc," a man said, as the Shepard twins, Kaidan and Toran entered the clinic. They could see Garrus crouched down out of sight from the people threatening a woman who they assumed was Dr. Michel. "Now if Garrus comes around, you stay smart. Keep your mouth shut or we'll…"

The human thug threatening the Doctor saw Rhys and Finn at this point, and grabbing Dr. Michel by the throat, turned her around so that her back was against him and his arm around her throat as he held his gun up at the Shepard twins. "Who are you!?"

"Let her go!" Rhys ordered, as he, Finn, and Kaidan all leveled their guns on the thug. Toran, meanwhile, raised his phaser.

Before the thug could respond, Garrus sprang out of hiding and quickly moved around the wall he was crouched behind, took aim, and shot the thug holding Dr. Michel in the neck as he collapsed to the floor and she cried out, "Agh!"

The other thugs in the room quickly raised their guns at Garrus, preparing to fire, as Dr. Michel, uninjured, crawled over to a corner behind one of the hospital beds and cowered in fear. Between the five of them, it didn't take long before all the thugs in the room was either dead or stunned.

Walking over to Garrus, he said, "Perfect timing, Shepard. Your distraction gave me a clear shot at that bastard."

"You took him down clean," Rhys said as he and the others put away their weapons.

"Sometimes you get lucky," Garrus said, before turning his attention to Dr. Michel. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm okay, thanks to you," Dr. Chloe Michel said in French-accented English. "All of you."

"Why were they threatening you?" Rhys asked before Finn asked, "Who are they working for?"

"They work for Fist," Dr. Michel said. "They wanted to shut me up. Keep me from telling Garrus about the Quarian."

"Does this have anything to do with the investigation into Saren?" Rhys asked.

"I think it might," Garrus said. "Dr. Michel, please tell us what happened."

Walking around in semi-circles, as she wrung her hands, Dr. Michel said, "A few days ago a Quarian came by my office. She'd been shot, but she wouldn't tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. She asked me about the Shadow Broker. She wanted to trade information in exchange for a safe place to hide."

"Where is she now?" Rhys asked.

"I put her in contact with Fist," Dr. Michel said. "He's an agent for the Shadow Broker."

Shaking his head, Garrus said, "Not anymore. Now he works for Saren and the Shadow Broker isn't too happy about it."

Dr. Michel was clearly quite surprised, as she asked, "Fist betrayed the Shadow Broker? That's stupid, even for him. Saren must have made him quite the offer."

"That Quarian must have something Saren wants," Garrus said. "Something worth crossing the Shadow Broker to get."

"Considering that the Broker regularly trades in information that's rumored to be big enough to cripple entire governments, you're probably right," Finn agreed. Turning to the doctor, he asked, "Can you remember anything else about this Quarian?"

"I'm not sure," the doctor admitted. "Like I said, she wanted to trade information for a place to hide. She didn't say much… wait, wait a minute. Her information had something to do with the Geth."

"She must be able to link Saren to the Geth," Garrus said. "There's no way the Council can ignore this!"

"Sounds like it's time we paid Fist a visit," Rhys said.

"This is your show, Shepard, but I want to bring Saren down as much as you do," Garrus said. "I'm coming with you."

Finn raised an eyebrow at that. "Why so eager to bring down a fellow Turian?"

"I couldn't find the proof in my investigation, but I knew what was really going on," Garrus answered. "Saren is a traitor to the Council and a disgrace to my people."

"That's good enough for me," Rhys said, as he looked over at Finn.

Nodding, Finn said, "Welcome aboard, Garrus."

"You know we aren't the only ones going after Fist," Garrus said. "The Shadow Broker hired a Krogan bounty hunter named Wrex."

"We're aware," Toran said, as he pressed his comm badge and said, "Toran to Will… any luck with Wrex?"

" _ **Will here,"**_ Will's voice said. _**"Yes, Toran, we're headed with him to Chora's Den. He and Joran really seem to have hit it off. Krogans are a warrior race, just like Klingons, so…"**_

"Makes sense," Toran said. "We've got Garrus and we'll head to the Den."

" _ **See you soon then. Will out."**_

"How did you do that?" Garrus asked. "What's a Klingon? And what is that weapon you were using earlier?"

"We'll fill you in on the way," Rhys said.

"Yes, best get to Chora's Den ASAP," Finn agreed. "It's not a good idea to keep a Krogan waiting."

-o-0-o-

To be continued…

And there you have Chapter Five of 'The Q Effect.' Some of you may be wondering why I didn't have any of the Starfleet, Romulan, or Klingon crews go to the meeting with the Council. I figured that initial meeting at the very least should play out similar to how it did in the game, without the Council believing that Saren had done anything wrong. Mainly because that leads to Tali, Garrus, and Wrex making their appearance… and a Mass Effect story without them just would not be right.

I'm still debating whether or not any of the Star Trek characters will visit with the Council the second time around. But, you'll find out what I decided in the next chapter, so stay tuned.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to contact me in a review, by email, my Yahoo group, or on Twitter JVascardi. Alternatively, you can also try to contact me via Skype (text messaging only) at . Or if any of you play Star Trek Online, I have several characters there, including but not limited to Toran Ren, Joran Dex, and Valdren Lareth. My handle is jaycolin25. So you could try contacting me there (or on Neverwinter).


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